PACIFIC SURVEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23886, 14 August 1939, Page 10

PACIFIC SURVEY

EXPEDITION TO STUDY OCEAN AMERICAN EXPERTS DEPARTURE, NEXT MONTH Plans for an extensive scientific survey of the Central and South Pacific Ocean are outlined by Dr Wilbur A. Nelson, of the School of Geology of the University of Virginia, in a letter to Mr N. Modnniak, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Wellington. The expedition will be conducted by the National Geographic Society and the University of Virginia, with the co-operation of the United States Coast Guard. It is expected to leave San Franciscq next month, and will remain in the field for a year. At intervals it will put in at Honolulu and Auckland for supplies and mail.: . Arrangements for the expedition were made through consultations with President Roosevelt, the Secretary of State, Mr Cordell Hull, the Under-Sec-retary, Mr Welles, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Morgenthau, and RearAdmiral Russell R. Waesche, commandant of the Coast Guard. Concurrently with the scientific work, the Coast Guard will survey present and future needs for navigational aids and radio facilities to assist marine and air commerce. , , , The expedition will be headed by Professor Nelson. The personnel will include geophysicists, a geographer, a cartographer and a photographer, provided by the National Geographic Society; experts on* gravity from the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey; specialists in magnetism from the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and a naturalist from the Smithsonian Institution, who will specialise in marine biology. Radio Broadcasts The National Broadcasting Company will send radio engineers to investigate radioi phenomena, and will arrange broadcasts from remote islands. With complicated instruments, tne scientists hope to find clues to the Pacific's secrets. The way a sensitive pendulum swings may give an idea when the vast basin originated. Lchoes will indicate water depths, and small man-made earthquakes on the bottom will give some idea of the type of rock lying under the deposits. The trip is to be made on one of the newest and largest Coast Guard cutters. It will be fitted with the latest type of sonic depth-finders and will carry a two-seat scout observation seaplane fqr use in, making aerial photographs and maps. The magnetic observations will be of great and immediate practical value in a past of the world where navigation, both bv water, and air, is of rapidly increasing importance. The magnetic findings of the expedition will furnish a much more nearly complete record of magnetic differences in the area than has ever before been available. Twenty Major Bases Stations will be set-up on variouo islands. Major bases will be established on 20 or more. From each major base from 10 to 50 other islands will be examined. The islands within' the four million and a-half square miles of area ifi which the expedition will work are all owned or controlled by the United States. France. Great Britain, or British Dominions. Westernmost of the islands to be studied, according to the present list, is Nauru, practically on the eguator. and about 800 miles northeast of Australia. Easternmost is Ducie Island, near the Tropic of Capricorn and in the longitude of San Francisco. Pitcarin Island is the southernmost of the iflands in the study area. I and Kingman's Reef. 500 miles south of Honolulu, is the northernmost. The expedition will make one of its ! earlv stops at Canton Island. Dotential "stopping place for the Pacific air I service.