TWELVE MILES DOWN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 September 1924, Page 5

TWELVE MILES DOWN.

EARTH SHAFT SUGGESTED. HY CARLE —PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT NEW YORK, Sept. 27. Sir Charles A. Parsons, addressing the American Society of Civil Engineers, advocated interantional cooperation in sinking a shaft twelve miles towards the centre of the earth to obtain scientific knowledge, especially regarding the possibility of the existence of new chemical elements and unknown metals heavier than such as are already known., He said the force of gravitation would draw such elements downward from the earth’s crust, adding: “We know nothing of what is below our feet. lam convinced it will take fifty years to penetrate twelve miles, and twenty millions sterling to finance the enterprise. British scientists and officials of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, are greatly interested in the scheme. It is a practicable engineering project. I would have the shaft twenty feet in diameter and lined with granite, and special machinery should be installed to dispel heat. Such an undertaking, owing to the scientific information it will reveal, is of greater importance than polar expeditions. The spot where the shaft should be-sunk ought to be determined by geologists.”