CHARTING THE PACIFIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19940, 8 May 1928, Page 8

CHARTING THE PACIFIC.

The mysterious loss of the motorship Asiatic Prince brings an arresting reminder that the charting of the Pacific Ocean has not yet been done with adequate thoroughness. Her fate is not easily explicable on any theory except that she suddenly struck a reef or rock and was so terribly damaged that she sank with all hands with scarcely time to send out the S.O.S. call faintly and briefly heard by the Niagara .and another liner. She was practically a new vessel, having been built only two years ago. She was splendidly equipped. She was well manned. Nothing is known suggestive of any internal condition, apart from her fuel supply, at all likely to account for her sudden disappearance on the day that the somewhat puzzling distress signal was heard ; and there remains as the only explanation with any high degree of probability, the likelihood that she foundered after striking something in her path. If so, what was it 1 ? A vessel so well equipped and manned is hardly likely to have fallen foul of any known reef; but there is reason to suspect the existence of lurking danger in uncharted rocks. Occasionally there has been descried broken water, indicative of a reef awash or only slightly submerged, where no such danger is intimated on the chart; and it is known that seismic disturbance on the ocean floor has made possible the sudden lifting of obstacles of this sort to a menacing level. The fate of the Asiatic Prince leaves room for conjecture. But these happenings are not conjectural : they are well authenticated, and point to the necessity, impressed by this untoward event, of giving mariners the aid of less incomplete knowledge than the available charts afford. The matter is one for expert attention by the Admiralty.