Abstract
LATITUDE OBSERVATIONS AT WAIKIKI.—The Hawaiian Gazette for March 8 contains an account by Mr. Preston, of the U. S. Coast Survey, of the latitude observations which are being made at Waikiki on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In it we read:—“The motion of the pole is, of course, extremely small, and the effect is that here in Honolulu we are about 50 feet nearer the equator now than we were some months ago. This change does not, however, go on indefinitely, but the motion is such that the pole returns at the end of a year to nearly its original position. Besides this annual movement, there seems to be reason to believe that there is a secular change extending over a period of at least sixty years.” But no definite conclusions can be arrived at until the observations made at Honolulu are discussed in connection with those made on this side of the earth. In order to test the theory that changes of latitude are produced by the movements of large masses of molten matter in the interior of the earth, the force of gravity is measured on every night that latitude observations are made. As this is done with the idea of detecting variations, the relative and not absolute intensity is all that is required. The arrangement employed is such that if from any cause the acceleration due to gravity should be increased by only one five-hundredth of an inch, it could be easily measured. The observations will be completed in the fall of the year, but the final results cannot be known before the latter part of 1893.
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Our Astronimical Column. Nature 46, 64–65 (1892). https://doi.org/10.1038/046064a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/046064a0