BRITISH TRIUMPH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 268, 7 February 1941, Page 8

BRITISH TRIUMPH

GERMANY SAID "IMPOSSIBLE" BRITAIN DELIVERS THE GOODS A triumph over tlicir German rivals is announced by Britain's scientific instrument makers. Before the war Canada invited the world to, compete for a surveying aneroid required by Hie Dominion's Geographical Survey Department. They asked for an accuracy of 0.02 inches of mercury. The Germans said it was impossible. They flatly refused to try. Britain decided to tackle the job. Two years' special research have been put in on it and now the makers -are able to disclose the fact that they have done ten times better than they, were asked to do. They have achieved not 0.02 inches of accuracy, but 0.002, or one-tenth of the error allowed by the specification. "'We lost heavily on it," said a member of the firm, "but the research we did has been of immense val uc." To-day Britain's supremacy in making scientific instruments is shown by the world demand for them. Among her war-time customers are Argentina. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The latest figures are eloquent of Britain's new supremacy. Before the war she was exporting about onethird the quantity of scientific instruments sold by her German rivals. sDuri.ng - the first nine months of the present year she sent overseas more than £900,000 worth, an actual increase of almost £100, OOu over the first nine months of 1939.