MISSION VESSEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 6

MISSION VESSEL

RETURN TO ISLANDS

ECHO SOUNDING INSTALLED

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, September 29. After spending a month ait Auckland, the Melanesian Mission steamer Southern Cross will leave port at noon tomorrow for Vila in the New Hebrides. In addition to the Bishop of Mela-, nesia, the Rt. Rev. W. H. Baddeley, and the usual staff and crew, there will be pn board three young men who have volunteered for service with the mission. Th<>y are Mr. W. A. Holloway, an Englishman who has. lived in New Zealand for some years, and Messrs. D. H. Baker and P. B. Armitage, who are both. New Zeajanders. Mr. Armitage has been responsible while the Southern Cross has been at Auckland for the installation of electric echo-sounding equipment, the gift of an anonymous English donor. The device, which will be , particularly valuable when the vessel is being navigated in badly-charted stretches of water among some of the islands which she visits, provides a continuous reading of the depths of water through which the ship passes. It was used for the first time on Wednesday, when the Southern Cross adjusted her compass, at the compass dolphin. It proved fully efficient. The echo-sounding gear will not only be used in the islands.as protection for the ship, but also as an aid to other mariners. The Southern Cross will now be able to make exact recordings of various areas which are at present poorly-charted, and the information she obtains will be used by the authorities in the preparation of new charts. Mr. Armitage's expert knowledge of the device is regarded on board as cause for considerable gratification. In addition to undergoing a Lloyd^ survey, being fumigated and having a number of details attended to while she has been in port, the Southern Cross has taken in a full stock of supplies.