the determination of chlorinity between America and Japan, It is, the 

 compiler beHeves, very important for us to pay attention to this point 

 for the future exploration of the Pacific oceanography. 



At present the leading chemists engaged in the preparation of standard 

 sea-water are, besides Yamamoto, Y. Miyake and K. Tanii, K. Suda, 

 K. Kimura, and K. Hidaka, who is greatly interested in this work. 



Deep-sea Reversing Thermometer 



Imported deep-sea reversing thermometers of Richter-Wiese make also 

 became very scarce in this country towards the outbreak of the war, 

 Shichiro Watabe, however, a very skilled thermometer maker, made 

 thousands of them for the hydrographic survey of this country. He can 

 prepare both protected and non-protected at present. Of course, the 

 performance is not so good as those of Richter-Wiese, or of Negretti- 

 Zambra. An encouragement by enthusiastic oceanographers, both home 

 and abroad, will improve the function. Watabe remarked to the compiler 

 that Dr. T. G. Thompson, of Seattle, was much interested in his deep-sea 

 thermometers. 



At present K. Hidaka is planning a non-protected thermometer 

 for shallow waters. For this purpose, the pressure coefficient must be 

 magnified several times that of the present model. He hopes this kind 

 of thermometer may be tried in foreign countries. 



The Oceanographical Society of Japan 



This scientific society was established in Januarj^ 1941, with Dr. T. 

 Okada as the President. It has issued a popular monthly magazine 

 Kaiyo no Kagaku (Science of the Sea) and Jotirnal of the Oceanographical 

 Society of Japan (quarterly purely scientific journal), both in Japanese 

 language. Both were suspended by the war after 1944, but we are now 

 preparing for active publication in the future. Dr. Okada resigned this 

 year, and K. Hidaka is now president. 



A committee on oceanographic research was established in 1943 in 

 the Japan Society of Promotion of Scientific Research for the purpose 

 of scientific exploration of the sea. It consisted of about 30 leading 

 physical, chemical, and geological oceanographers but was disbanded in 

 1946 for economical reasons. 



Antarctic Observations 



The Japanese Antarctic whaling cruises were resumed for the winters 

 1946-47 and 1947-48, and specialists were allowed to take part in these 

 expeditions for scientific investigations. 



During the cruise of the winter 1946-47, T. Shimomura, of the Central 

 Meteorological Observatory took part in the expedition, and obtained 

 oceanographic data, although the results are not yet published. 



On the second cruise of the winter 1947-48 Dr. T. Tamura, professor 

 of the Hakodate Fisheries College and the concurrent member of the 

 Hakodate Marine Observatory, and J. Sugiura, a young physical oceano- 

 grapher of the Central Meteorological Observatory, pushed inio the 

 Antarctic circle on board a whaler, as far as 75° 41' S. and got many 

 oceanic data from the layers down to 400 m., the measurements being 

 made of the water temperatures, salinity, hydrogen-ion concentration, 

 oxygen, silicates, phosphates, colour of the sea, and transparency. 

 Meteorological and biological data were taken, too, 



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