Page 12 Advertisements Column 2

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 65, 3 April 1937, Page 12

Seeking to learn the exaet shape of the earth, scientists of the United States Navy Hydrographic Offic© iecently used the submarine Barracuda as a laboratory. Gravity measurements that thcy obtained in a cruise through the Caribbean Sea, coupled with earlier observations of tbe saine type, may help solve outstanding problems of geo logy. The variatious observed in fhe i'orce oi' gravity at different points give give clues to strajns within the earth that cause earthquases, and distort the earth as a whole from the «shape of a perfect sphere. At sea such readings can be obtained only aboard a submarine, since even tbe slightest surface swells make it impossible to operate the delicate instruments that are used. The observers on the Barracuda found it necessary to submerge to a depth of 75 feet to reach water quiet enough to operate their multiple-pendulum gravity apparatus, designed and built by a Dutch geologist, F. A. Vening Meinesz. During their 6500-mile experiitiou they also took soundings of ocean depths, in a study covering a hitherto unexplored , } area of the floor of the sea.