Abstract
A COMMITTEE, consisting of Dr. Shipley (the Vice-Chancellor), Dr. H. K. Anderson, Col. Sir C. F. Close, Sir Horace Darwin, Sir F. W. Dyson, Dr. E. H. Griffiths, Sir T. H. Holdich, Sir Joseph Larmor, Col. H. G. Lyons, Prof. Newall, Sir Charles Parsons, Sir Napier Shaw, Sir J. J. Thomson, and Prof. H. H. Turner, has been formed for the purpose of making an appeal for the creation and endowment of a geophysical institute at Cambridge. The question of the establishment of an institute of this character has been under consideration by the British Association for the last three years. A large and representative committee reported unanimously in favour of the project, which was then considered by the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies, This Board also reported that there was a real need for such an institute. The chief reasons which have been put forward on behalf of the scheme are:—(1) Geodetic work must form the basis and control of all the State surveys of the Empire, on which about a million sterling was spent annually before the war. (2) A geophysical institute could render great assistance in connection with the particular group of geodetic problems now of most practical interest in the United Kingdom, namely, those associated with levelling, mean sea-level, and vertical movements of the crust of the earth. (3) Such an institute is greatly needed to assist in the study of the tides and in attacking the great problems which must be solved if tidal pre diction is to advance beyond its present elementary and fragmentary state. (4) There is at present no provision for the collection and critical discussion of the geodetic work which is being done within the Empire, or for its comparison with the work of other countries. There is no institution available for research work or higher training in geodesy. There is no British institution which can be referred to for the latest technical data and methods, and until the outbreak of war it was the custom of many British surveys (notably the Survey of India), when confronted with geodetic problems, to refer to the Geodetic Institute at Potsdam. This was not even then a very satisfactory arrangement, and now a radical change is inevitable.
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A British Geodetic and Geodynamic Institute . Nature 103, 154 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/103154a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/103154a0