Abstract
RECENT years have witnessed great advances in our knowledge of the gravitational field near the earth's surface on land, but in spite of many efforts the extension of these determinations to oceanic regions has until quite lately proved a very intractable problem. It would now seem that substantial success has at last been achieved, as the result of trials of a specially designed apparatus and method during a voyage of a submarine from Holland to Java in 1923. The apparatus used is a development of one which was devised to overcome difficulties experienced in ordinary pendulum determinations in Holland, where the unusual mobility of the soil had made it impracticable to eliminate slight movements of the supports. These motions were rendered innocuous by suspending from the same plate several pendulums, having very nearly equal periods of vibration, and causing them to vibrate in different phases. The success of this device led to its trial at sea also, on a steamer of 1200 tons, but the weather was bad and the pitching and rolling of the vessel spoilt the attempt. Prof, van Iterson, Director of the Netherlands State Mines, then suggested that these disturbances might perhaps be avoided, or sufficiently reduced, by making observations on a submerged submarine instead of on a floating vessel. Preliminary trials confirmed the value of this proposal and arrangements were then made for a more exhaustive test.
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Submarine Measurements of Gravity. Nature 115, 550 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115550a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115550a0