THE TASMAN WRECK

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 223, 15 June 1921, Page 5

THE TASMAN WRECK

Sir.—Of course, lin no way nue.Mioni the finding of the Court of Inquiry held) in Auckland into the loss of the steamer Tasman. I merely wish publicly to) record my deliberate conviction that Tasman was lost off White Island and. got out of her course owing to a flection of the compass to westward. 1 The prime cause was the terrific and.; abnormal disturbance in the sun, which.; increased in energy day by day from May 9 to 15, culminating in the mag-; nificent display of the Aurora Australis. 1 In the general magnetic maelstrom which affected the whole world more, or less the eruption of White Island ; produced n subsidiary electro-magnetic:. ''whirlpool,” like an eddy on .the back-, wafer of a river: it became, in fact, a' little power station on its own. Ry j an electric current passing from north to south through the sea-bed, and .re-| turning from south to north, the ship's j compass needle was necessarily deflected • Westerly bv Oerstedt’s law, viz., "a jo®--, netio needle free to move places itself . at an angle with al flow of electricity.” ■ I am surprised that Captain .Tohn An- ; derson, the licensed compass adjuster at'; Auckland, appeared to have questioned i the accuracy of my evidence. It isl admittedly an ob'tru«o subject, and lie*; would do well to study it. The follow- ) ing quotations will suffice:—H.M.S. Pengnin, when off Rezont Island, North-i West Australia, in 1890. encountered a.l local magnetic storm, and "it was found ! that the greatest disturbance of the ) standard compass was produced by n) force repelling the north end of the; needle, amounting to 23 degrees when on-1 the N.W. side of the centre, and to 55 ' degrees on the S.E. side. The ship wasl anchored for four hours, the north-i seeking-end of the needle remaining con-j atantly recoiled as mugh as 50 degrees tor; 55 degrees” (see "Lecky’s Wrinkles in'.! Practical Navigation,” ninth edition..) page 30). Another from “Electricity and. 1 .; Magnetism," by Professor Silvanus Thompson, pages 125, 121:—"A midden, ir-J regular magnetic storm will affect the) whole of the compass needles over a con-; siderable region of the globe. Streams I of electrified air will act like true elec-; trie currents.” j Just another:—"The aurora is known, to be electrical, for magnets and compass! needles on ships are always affected.. No magnet can be .placed near a current of electricity without making oscillation.”.’ (See “Radiant Energy,” by Professor': Edgar L. Larkin, Director of Lowe ob-| servatory, California, page 137.) • How. then, can Captain Anderson: maintain that “Mr. Wragge's theory is! not suitable for ships’ compasses, and its application is therefore wrong," as; reported in the “New Zealand Herald" 1 of June 10, 1921? In view of the tremendous importance of this subject to New Zealand shipping,, especially on the East Coast, I would suggest that, when sun storms have been notified, navigating officers- should give islands and rocks a wide berth on dark and cloudy nights, when adequate bearings cannot be taken. , Finally, it must bo remembered that; when the sun is ripped and tossed by storms, which may even reach 80,000 miles in diameter, with regard to any given nucleus, its magnetic field is stupendously disturbed, and then the earth l responds instantly (i.e., in eight and a half minutes) like a coherer. The cur-, rents induced in the earth will vary, and this will change the potential of the earth’s magnetic field, and cause magnetic maelstroms. For the whole cosmos is electric, and everything is governed by wireless vibratory waves, and everything is linked up with everything else.— I am. etc.,

CLEMENT L. WRAGGE. Birkenhead, Auckland, June 12, 1921.