SCIENCE CONGRESS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22010, 17 January 1935, Page 9

SCIENCE CONGRESS

ommm session NEW PRESIDENT ELECTED OBJECT OF THE GATHERING By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received January 16, 10.25 p.m.) MELBOURNE. Jan. 16 Only informal preliminary pro-, ceedings occurred at the opening of the Science Congress to-day. One of the earliest decisions made was to hold the next Congress in January, • 1937, at Auckland. Sir David Rivett, chief executive officer of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, was elected president in succession to Sir Douglas Mawson. The delegates were welcomed by the Lord Mayor. In responding Sir Douglas Mawson said: " This will be a very active Congress. Our interest is to develop general interest in science and to give the public an opportunity to realise that science is worth while. PAPER ON ANTARCTIC SIR DOUGLAS MAWSON In a paper read to the Science Congress in Melbourne last evening Sir Douglas Mawson dealt with " The Unveiling of Antarctica." The theoretical speculation of the cosmographers' of classical times, he said, postulated the existence of an extensive land mass terminating the earth to the south of the then known world. The fallacy was perpetuated in the maps of the Middle Ages. Penetration by explorers had led to the isolation of numbers of southern ' lands, but a new phase of South Polar exploration commenced about 1840 and had continued until the present. Generally, the results were the establishment of the existence of a continent within the polar circle, against the hypothetical continent of vastly greater dimensions, and. science had been greatly enriched by records relating to climate, oceanography, geology, zoology and other subjects. During the past 40 years Australia and New Zealand had taken ever-in-creasing interest in the region. New Zealand had the Ross Sea Dependency and Australia the Australian Antarctic Dependency. The whale fishing industry also had been lucrative. Sir Douglas said the immense coastline of Antarctica and the,spacious seas richly stocked with marine life should, if properly administered, assume greater commercial importance, particularly to Australia and New- Zealand.