294 REPORTS OF RESEARCH COMMITTEES. 



No communication has been forwarded to^ me as yet from the 

 Lands and Survey Department of the Dominion. Professor T. H. 

 Laby agrees substantially with the opinions already expressed by 

 Mr. H. A. Hunt and Professor Griffith Taylor. The remainder 

 of the committee with the exception of Dr. J. M. Baldwin and 

 Professor Kerr Grant, who adopt a non-committal attitude, favour 

 the re-opening of the wireless station, but do not give strong 

 reasons. 



It may be added that Piofessor Kerr Grant and Mr. C Hedley 

 both suggest that the committee take up the qviestion of creating 

 a zoological and botanical preserve at Macquarie Island. This 

 .'suggestion appears to me to be well worthv of serious consideration. 



Meanwhile, in view of the adverse opinion already expressed by 

 the professional meteorologists, it appears to me that the question 

 of re-establishing the wireless station at Macquarie Island for 

 meteorological purposes must, for the present, be postponed. 



10th January, 1921. 



SECTION A. 



2. The Determination of Gravity in certain Critical 

 Localities Committee. 



(By Assistant Professor Leo. A. Cotton, Secretary to the Committee.) 



A preliminary account of the installation and working of the 

 pendulums at Burrinjuck was read before the Royal Society of 

 New South Wales in December, 1915. As this account has since 

 been published, the present statement is concerned with the sub- 

 sequent work. 



It was noticed by the writer, and was subsequently pointed out 

 to him by the late J. Barrell m a personal communication, that 

 the direction of the main displacements recorded in the preliminary 

 account referred to above were not those which one would have 

 antici]>ated as the result of the water load. These movements 

 were therefore, at the time, thought to be secular in character, 

 and it was ho^^ed that further observations might enable the 

 secular movements to be separated from those due to the water 

 load. The preliminary measurements referred to and published 

 indicate clearlv that as a rule rapid changes in the water load 

 are accompanied by small changes in the movements of the pendu- 

 lums, so that there can be no doubt that the earth's crust is 

 actually moving from time to time under the influence of the 

 water load. 



