SCIENCE CONGRESS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1923, Page 2

SCIENCE CONGRESS.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. VARIOUS RESOLUTIONS. SYDNEY, Aug. 31. 1 lie Science Congress recommended the following resolutions for adoption b\ the final general meeting I hat a general survey of the I' iji Islands is desirable, not only on seientic grounds, particularly in throwing light on the region of tlio coral reefs and in connection with earth movements, but because it may lead to valuable information being gained ol the mineral lesourees of the Islands and which cannot fail to be of great assistance in opening up the country to settlement; f that a committee be appointed to cure a general description of Die tectonic structure of the Pacific region along certain definite lines. The Congress also adopted a series of resolutions recommending the speedj erection of wireless stations in all counttries bordering on the Pacific, capable of communiating directly with each other, with a view to popularising in-ter-communication and keeping dau> records of meteorological and other scientific data ; that the Governments of tho United States. Japan, tho Dutch East Indies. Australia and New Zealand be asked to establish a daily mean time signal, to be transmitted at 8 o'clock sit- nieht. local staiulsira tunc, from Funlmshi, Cavite, Bandoeng, Perth, Adelaide. Melbourne and at nine o’clock at night from Sydney and Mel- - lington ; records to lie kept as data tor consideration bv the next Congress. SYDNEY, Aug. 31.

At the Science Congress, Doctor Tilvard described the iirehlight disease, and its serious ravages among the fruit trees in some parts of New Zea-

land. Professor MacMillan Drown conirihuted a further interesting address regarding Easter Island. He humorously told Imw two animals had been introduced there. Ono was a rat, which was so valuable that the natives made it currency, while the other was a fowl, introduced for the sake of its feathers, which was used as head-dress. He could personally testify that tno fowl consisted of nothing hut skin, hones and feathers. These fowls were also considered extremely valuable, and the fowl houses wore the strongest places about, being fortified against thieves.

WORJJTS RESOrRCES. SYDNEY, Aur. 31. At the Science Congress, during a general discussion on the economic resources of the world, Professor Kevin HI. Finneinan, a member of the American National Research Council, said the greatest economic fact of the nineteenth century was the increase of the word's population from a I illion to a billion and a-hfllf. If the world had reached the point at which it was mostly full, it was of enormous significance economically, and in every other way. There were future possibilities in science. hut they were something of a gamble. It would he a matter of only a few centuries when a large number of the resources on which we counted for our present civilisation would he things of the past. If we continued to use coal at the. present rate the supply probably would hist less than three thousand years.