SCIENCE AND ART

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1924, Page 11

SCIENCE AND ART

MEETING OF BOARD

A GEOGRAPHICAL OBSERVATORY.

A meeting of the Board of Science and Art was held at the Museum Building yesterday afternoon. Present: The Hon. G. M. Thomson, M.Ii.C. (in the chair), Dr. P. Marshall, Dr. Marsden, Messrs. P. G. Morgan, H. M. Gore, J. Hislop, Dr. G. Scholefield, Dr. J, A. Thomson, and Mr. W. R. B. Oliver.

The committee appointed to consider the question of a volcanological and seismological observatory and a site for the same, Teported:—"That in view of the fact that the geological structure of the thermal regions, is still very imperfect-. ly known, the committee considers that the first step towards a' permanent volcanological; observatory should be the appointment of a research officer to make geological and volcanological observations for a period of two years under the direction of the board. Tlie committee recommends that the officer should be appointed by the board at a salary of £400, and that he be furnished with a motor-car."

The report was adopted. The chairman read a letter which he had received while on a visit to Honolulu recently, from Dr. T. A. Jaggar, Volcanologist, Hawaiian Observatory, urging the importance of creating a strong geophysical observatory or;' central laboratory for geophysics, in New Zealand, as part of a consistent AngloSaxon chain of such stations from San Francisco to Dnnedin. New Zealand, Hawaii, and California were all volcanic and locally highly seismic. They constituted a belt dividing the Pacific in half over 8000 nautical miles long. They were all three equipped with Englishspeaking universities and Government surveys under first-class Powers with, big naval equipment, and both Britain, and America were using their navies for science. "New Zealand," continued Dr. Jaggar, "with a suitable man behind the gun can put a new earth-and-star. laboratory on the map, just as Dr.' Halo at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadeha'has put up an absolutely new type of sjin-and-st_r observatory. A, central station at Dunedin, specialising, say, on the moon and the southern heavens, could well be headquarters' for all phenomena concerning the character, causes, and development in time and space of New Zealand earth movements, underground temperatures, and subterranean sounds." A central geophysical station, continued Dr. Jaggar, would require two or three subordinate stations in the volcanic and seismic districts. There was already a good man (Mr. Thomson) at Samoa. There should also be an officer at Taupo; and subordinate .university stations could be developed as required. . Beports were received from several sub-committees of tha board, ■ dealing mostly with minor executive matters or with questions of purely scientific 'interest.