EXACT SHAPE OF EARTH.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 January 1929, Page 2

EXACT SHAPE OF EARTH.

SUBMARINE EXPEDITION

PROBLEM FOR SCIENTISTS.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10. -Equipped with delicate instruments and having aboard eminent scientists skilled in their use and operation, the American submarine S2l has set out on a mission which is expected to solve the old question, “What is the shape of the earth ?’’ In .this submerged laboratory the picked group of scientific observers will watch carefully over the functioning of an apparatus which photographs the timed swing qf a pedulum which determines the force of gravity and records thereby the precise contour of the ocean’s floor.

The personnel of the expedition includes the famous Dutch scientist, Dr. E. A. Veiling Meinesz, professor of geodsy of the University of Utrecht, as chief, with Dr. Frederick E. Wright, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Dr. Elmer B. Collins, principal scientist of the naval hydrographic office. In addition to the ingenious ■pendulum apparatus brought t 0 this ■country by the Dutch scientist, the S2l is equipped with an improved sonic depth-finder and other instruments with which to record all observations made.

j Actual measurements of intensity of )' gravity t<> obtain outlines of the earth have "been made in a few restricted tracts in continental areas .and though they have included only a fraction of the earth’s surface, from these have been drawn our idea of the size of the earth. Until the development of Dr. Meinesz’s instruments, it has been impracticable to obtain such measurements at sea. Even his instruments cannot be used except on a submerged submarine, where the minimum motion from the sea is experienced. The ordinary ocean swell caused movements too great to be eliminated within the capability of any pendulum device so far designed, but in a ship submerged below the influence of wave action a sufficiently steady platform is assured for the successful operation of. Dr. Meinesz’s instrument. Thus the submarine is the sole agency known to science for accomplishing the investigation essential for determining the contour of the earth under the sea. This is a problem that has intrigued astronomers, geologists and other scientists since Eratosthenes, more' than 2000 years ago, employed as data the gnomons of Alexandria and Syena and the stadia between. Essential to the investigations is not only the submarine’ s power to submerge, but its abality to receive time signals by radio and to take- sounding at great depths by means of the sonic depth-finder. Through the records of this instrument an accurate profile of the ocean bed may be made simultaneously with the measurement of gravity of that. area. The region to be traversed is one of the most interesting qf the earth from a geophysical and geological standpoint. It is. believed that the islands of the West Indies are comparatively young, geologically -speaking. The ocean waters surged over the places now occupied by those islands iu the not-distant past. What caused these uplifts of the islands, and what caused the great ocean deeps that lie among them? These are problems on which we have been able to speculate only , for we have mot had the necessary fundamental data on which to build theories and to give logical explanations.