OCEAN SURVEY

Hokitika Guardian, 6 August 1929, Page 1

OCEAN SURVEY

COLLECTING LOCAL DATA. GERMAN SCIENTIST’S WORK. An interesting and jnotable visitor to the Dominion is Professor P. P. G. Schott, oceanologist of the German Shipping Institute at Hamburg. Professor Schott is spending only ten days in the Dominion, and left Wellington on Saturday for New Plymouth, says the “Post.”. He lias already visited India, Japan, China and Australia, collecting samples of sea water and specimens of marine life and growth. The German Institute used to be a department of commerce. It carries out work of world-wide importance in connection with meteorology, oceanography and aerology. It also has a special department for dealing with the improvement of nautical instruments, and provides a very accurate time signall service. For 'its meteorological work it has in the, Atlantic no fewer u.an sixty-four specially equipped vessels, and it makes a feature of working up in full all the meteorological data in the log of every German ship, Three, vessels in the service are fully equipped for upper air observation, and Professor Schott has offered to lend one of their special sextants for this work to Mr R. G. Simmers, of the New Zealand Meteorological Office, during the Mawson Antarctic, Exhibition, an offer which has been gratefully accepted. In the oceanological work a ship is specially equipped for surveying the oceans. From samples of sea water the salinity of oceans in all parts of the world is determined. When the temperature is also known, the density of the water can be calculated. As plankton varies as the density, the migration of fish food can thus be traced. Professor Schott is in New Zealand collecting data for his books on the oceanography of the Pacific, which will he similar to his* monumental work on the Atlantic Ocean. He has also written at length on the currents of the Indian Ocean, tracing’ tlioir variation through every month of the year.