DEATH FINDING.

Shannon News, 25 September 1923, Page 3

DEATH FINDING.

A WONDERFUL CONTRIVANCE

SYDNEY, August 29. ;A If "men like Newton could re-visi| the earth to-day -they would probably ,stand aghast at the extraordinary d# velopment of science. There is now in Sydney the-American cruiser Miff waukee, fitted with an extraordinary depth-finding apparatus, the object of the visit being the the pan-Pacific, Science Congress an onport'unity to- witness a demonstration' of its powers. The- Sonic method of sounding,- according to Professor Sir Edgeworth David, will wholly revolutionise modern methods of charting coasts (and locating dangers ■to shipping, suc|. as submarine reefs and banks, the being more rapid and more economical than that of ..sounding by means of the lead and line. The apparatus depends for its working on; a method rf .just ns, in the soupd, wayes, one throws one’s ...voice’* out in ah areat where there is a; .good."echo. In thq Sonic method of sounding., an electrid b'irm>se 'is-'sent' downward from thf ship to tlh'e sea bottom,’ and'is reflect| ed -back ; again tor 'a. receiver oh ths ship. The deeper'.the water the long| er is the time-iiiterval between th« sending out and the echoing back o| the impulse. A simple table -enable! the - observer rapidly to convert th{| time ' interval into' fathoms. Thus thg denth is found. .The 'wonderful apparatus, it is considered, will do much to speed up .the charting, of the oceans’! The apparatus is the outcome-of de| vices for ’.protecting submarines darf-,-ing. the war. •* *