It contains a wooden box with glass windows on the sides, and a shit on the top,

through which the oscillations can be observed. A stirrup in which a magnet can be
placed is suspended by a fine, torsion-less fibre from the torsion head T. A plane
mirror with a fine line PQ parallel to the length is fixed on the base helps to count the
number of vibration made by the magnet, without parallax error as in figure

Principle:
A freely suspended magnet in uniform magnetic field aligns in the direction of the
field. When it is displaced through a small angle ‘θ’ in a horizontal plane and
released, it experiences a restoring couple. This keeps the magnet in simple
harmonic motion.

The vibration magnetometer can be used:

(a) to compare teh horizontal components of earth’s magnetic field at different
palces.
(b) to determine teh magnetic moment of a magnet and the horizontal component of
the earth’s magnetic field at a given place, when used along with deflection
magnetometer.

To compare the horizontal component of earth’s magnetic field at two places

Procedure:
-the box is rotated so that the line AB lies in the magnetic meridian with the help of a
magnetic compass.
-a brass bar is placed in the stirrup and the torsion head is rotated so that the br
comes to rest in the magnetic meridian
-now the brass bar is removed and a bar magnet is kept in it. The magnet aligns in
the magnetic meridian without any torsion in the suspension wire.
-this magnet of moment M is made to deflect in a horizontal plane through a small
angle with the help of an external magnet nd set to vibrate.
-the time taken for 10 oscillations is determined. It is repeated for three times and the
average time ‘T’ is taken. The time period T is calculate