378 



NATURE 



[September 8, 1923 



Pan-Pacific Science Congress, Australia, 1923. 



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,7HILE not on so extensive a scale as, nor with 

 the Imperial significance of, the Australian 

 meeting in 191 4 of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, the second triennial Pan- 

 Pacific Science Congress, which has just met in Mel- 

 bourne and afterwards in Sydney, may mean very 

 much to the development of organised knowledge of, 

 and in, countries bordering upon the Pacific Ocean. 

 The first gathering of the kind was held in Honolulu 

 in 1920, and as a matter of fact it was really the sequel 

 to ideas that originated during the British Association 

 visit to Australia and later were warmly fostered by 

 Prof. W. M. Davis (Harvard), Prof. H. E. Gregory 

 (Yale), Dr. T. Wayland Vaughan (U.S. Geological 

 Survey), Mr. A. H. Ford, and others. The Pan-Pacific 

 Union, a wide organisation with the general aim of 

 promoting harmonious relations between the peoples 

 of the Pacific, stood behind the Honolulu Congress, 

 but future Science Congresses will undoubtedly all be 

 under the general direction and control of the National 

 Research Councils of the countries concerned. 



The Commonwealth Government is acting as host 

 for the 1923 gathering, the organisation being in the 

 hands of the Australian National Research Council, 

 of which Sir David Orme Masson is president. State 

 Governments are generously supplementing the 

 Commonwealth's financial and other assistance, and 

 it has been possible in many cases to make grants 

 helping to defray travelling costs for delegates from 

 distant countries. The prevailing high rates for 

 steamship travelling are a grave difficulty in the way 

 of international assemblies in a region of such vast 

 distances as the Pacific. Happily the interest of 

 the Governments of the chief countries concerned 

 has been aroused, and invitations, conveyed through 

 the Colonial Office, to send official delegates, have 

 met with much response. Unfortunately the South 

 American Republics, with few exceptions, have 

 regretted that their financial conditions do not permit 

 the sending of official representatives. Even more 

 unfortunate is it that France has not seen fit to send a 

 delegation. Nevertheless, with eleven visitors from 

 Great Britain, nineteen from the United States of 

 America, three from Canada, eight from Hawaii, 

 twelve from Japan and Formosa, nine from the 

 Philippines, six from the Netherlands and the Dutch 

 East Indies, eleven from New Zealand, and smaller 

 delegations from British Malaya, Burma, Tahiti, 

 Papua, Fiji, and Hong Kong, a very fairly representa- 

 tive gathering is assured. While in Australia, all 

 visitors from overseas are the guests of private citizens 

 or institutions and are receiving the privilege of free 

 railway travelling before, during, and after the 

 Congress. 



To transfer a congress after ten days in one city to 

 another some six hundred miles distant must militate 

 against consecutive work and lead to a certain amount 

 of overlapping ; but the advantages in enabling 

 visitors to see more of the country, and in increasing 

 the numbers of local workers who come into personal 

 contact with them, more than counterbalance the 

 obvious disadvantages. 



Needless to say, an extensive series of excursions 

 has been arranged, the principal excursions, over long 

 distances, necessarily coming after the official business 

 in Sydney has been concluded. Visits to Broken 

 Hill, Irrigation Areas, Artesian Water Areas, Great 

 Barrier Reef, Northern Rivers to Brisbane, Canberra 

 and other parts of the Commonwealth, are proposed. 



The scientific work is being carried on in eleven 

 Sections. As, however, it has been a deliberate object 

 of the organisers to avoid a multiplicity of papers on 



single and more or less isolated topics, and to aim 

 instead at broad general discussions, there arc several 

 joint meetings between Sections. The Set* 



f)rise: I. Agriculture; II. Anthropology ai 

 ogy ; III. Botany; IV. Entomology; V. iore4»u\ 

 Vi. Geodesy, Geophysics, Radiotelegraphy, etc. ; Vl ! 

 Geo^aphy and Oceanography ; VIII. Geology ; IX 

 HVi^ene ; X. Veterinary Science; and XI. Zoology 



The agriculturists are concerned chiefly with the 

 problems presented by diseases in wheat and other 

 cereals, sugar-cane, cotton, tobacco, bananas, etc 

 and on the serious difficulties to be face<l in coi 

 trolling weed pests. Proposals for plant quarantin 

 regulations may represent an immediate practical ou' 

 come. Agricultural education and research, s^^ 

 surveys, and irrigation questions are also being di 

 cussed, while much interest is being taken in a join 

 discussion with the zoologists and veterinarians upon 

 genetics, with special reference to the improvement of 

 farm animals. 



In anthropology and ethnology the Congress 1^ 

 attacking the fundamental problem of how best to 

 organise and carry out research work in the Pacific 

 Islands before it is too late. The matter is very urge: ■ 

 indeed. Expressions of opinion have been invito 

 from leading ethnologists in Great Britain who cannot 

 be present in person, and it is hoped that, so far at 

 least as the British islands are concerned, a practical 

 working scheme may be evolved, to be submitted later, 

 with the full weight of the Congress behind it, to the 

 Commonwealth Government. Sir Baldwin Spencer, 

 who has just returned from yet another visit to the 

 interior, is bringing forward the allied, yet distinct, 

 question of future research in regard to the Australian 

 aborigines. Another wide topic under consideration, 

 in common with the Hygiene Section, is the recent 

 rapid decline in native population in the islands, while 

 there are also discussions upon the physical anthropo- 

 logy of various Pacific types, and the race relations 

 between them. 



Botany, entomology, and forestry have much in 

 common in several proposed discussions upon timbers, 

 and with zoology the matter of introduced pests and 

 their natural enemies is being taken up, especially the 

 increasingly serious problem of checking the spread 

 of tropical boring insects. 



The physical work of the Congress centres mainl\ 

 round geodesy, terrestrial magnetism, meteorolog\ 

 and seismology, while the highly practical inte: 

 national matters of radiotelegraphic communicatioi 

 and determinations of longitude by wireless, are alsu 

 being discussed. Solar physics research, for which 

 many maintain that more is being claimed on the 

 purely practical side than it will yield, and the need 

 for its endowment by Governments, is a subject for 

 vigorous debate. 



Those members concerned with geography and 

 oceanography are meeting with the physicists fre- 

 quently, especially when discussing questions of 

 cartography and meteorology. Definite proposals are 

 being made for continuing and extending, by local 

 effort, the invaluable hydrographic work of the Royal 

 Navy, and for international collaboration in oceano- 

 graphic work. 



As might be expected, the largest Section is that 

 devoted to Geologv*. The structure of the Pacific 

 Basin, Post-mesozoic volcanic action in the Pacific, 

 ore provinces, correlation of Kainozoic formations, 

 coral reef formations, glaciation, Carboniferous and 

 Permian problems in the Pacffic Region, are among 

 the more general matters before the Section. 



Two main subjects discussed in the Hygiene Section, 



NO. 



2810, VOL. I 12] 



