VALUE TO SCIENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14157, 4 September 1909, Page 5

VALUE TO SCIENCE.

A PROFESSOR EXPLAINS. Speaking to a. Herald representative yesterday on the assumption that the cabled report that Dr. Cook had succeeded in reaching the North Pole is correct, Professor A. P. W. Thomas, of the Auckland University Collego, stated that, the achievement was certainly one cf the greatest importance,

not because of the fact that it was the first occasion upon which the task had been accomplished, but because many sister sciences were interested. ''First of all there is the character of the earth's surface at this point, whether it- is sea or land," he remarked. "From Nans-en's investigations we were inclined to anticipate sea, frozen sea, around the North Pole. Meteorological observations taken at the North Pole must naturally be of the greatest importance, as also must be the location of the magnetic pole. "From the point of view of geology in ascertaining the forming of the ice periods the achievement must, also be regarded as of considerable moment, while great importance must also be attached to a knowledge of the conditions and temperature at the Pole." "There has," continued Professor Thomas, " been a great deal of speculation with regard to the cause of the formation of the earth, which is usually described as a sphere flattened at the poles. Of recent years it has been discovered that the sphere route is not regular, and it is believed that the formation of the earth has been disturbed in the direction of a short pear-shaped tetrahedron. An apparently striking feature in the earth is that the high land in one hemisphere corresponds with water in the other. In other words at the antipodes of land we find water. Since there is land around the South Pole we are inclined to anticipate, and observations up to the present have confirmed the view, that there in sea, frozen sea, around the North Pole."