SCIENCE AT SEA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 82, 28 July 1914, Page 4

SCIENCE AT SEA.

Interesting scientific experiments and researches are to be made by a number of professors on their way to Australia to attend the meetings of the British Association this summer, writes the London correspondent of the Lyttelton Times, Starting in advance of the main party, about seventy members were to leave Liverpool on June 22 by the Blue Funnel Line steamer Ascanius. These will have a week of biological and geological excursions and practical field work in Western Australia before the general meetings begin in Adelaide on August 8. On the voyage out Professor Duffield will carry out experiments in connection with the investigation of the variation of the force of gravitation over the sea. The measurement of the force of gravity on land is carried out by a swinging pendulum, but this cannot be used at sea, because of the motion of the ship. Professor Duffield’s investigations will be carried out by a method devised by Professor Hecker, a well-known German scientist, which uses the comparisons between the height of a column of mercury at one end of a bent tube with the pressure exerted by a mass of gas contained in a bulb at the other end of the tube. The two essentials for the success of these experiments are an absolutely constant temperature and the prevention of any rise or fall of the mercury in the tubes due to the ship’s movement. The latter, it is hoped, will be obtained by the special damping arrangements provided with the apparatus, and the former should be ensured by the fact that the whole apparatus will be installed in a specially-built refrigerating chamber. It is hoped to test how gravity varies over the deep and shallow parts of the ocean, and if the observations are successful it should be possible to distinguish between rival theories put forward to account for the conformation of the earth’s surface. Professor Herdman is arranging to make an extensive study of the Plankton, or minute floating life of the sea through which the ship is passing.. The constitution of the Plankton is of great importance in connection with sea fishery questions, and the comparison of the tropical Plankton with that of temperate seas is of special interest. Samples will be caught continuously day and night by fine silk nets fitted on to sea-water taps to be specially provided on the steamer.