To Probe Pacific’S

Depth

Danish Expedition Next Year

SOME time in 1951, a Danish scientific expedition of unusual interest will arrive in the Pacific. It is equipped to explore the deepest holes in the ocean floor—it expects to get biological speci mens from depths of 30,000 feet.

Fifteen Danish scientists expect to leave Copenhagen on October 1, on the British-built frigate Galathea, 1,600 tons, 265 feet long, under the command of Dr.

Anton Bruun. Dr. Bruun commanded the Dana, which carried Professor Johannes Schmidt’s expedition around the world in 1928-30. One of its dis coveries was that European eels migrate to the Sargasso Sea, to breed and die there.

The Galathea is booked for 66 ports.

She sails via West Africa, South Africa.

Madagascar, Reunion, Mauritius, and Ceylon, to Calcutta. Then she calls at various ports in Indonesia and goes via the Philippines to Japan. After that, via the Celebes, she arrives in the South west Pacific, and calls at;— New Guinea area—Manokwari, Rabaul, Solomon Islands and Port Moresby.

Chief Australian ports.

New Zealand area—Chief ports and out liers.

South Central Pacific —Suva, Tonga, Pago Pago, Papeete, Pitcairn, Easter Island. t She returns home via the Panama Canal and West Indies. The voyage will take two years.

The expedition has been financed by Danes living abroad, by the Government (which provides the ship) and the Navy (which supplies the crew of 80 men to work her).

That well-known Danish journalist and traveller, Hakon Mielche, who made hun dreds of friends when he went through the Pacific on the Monsunen (and was wrecked on her!) in 1934, is in charge of a public relations team booked for the Galathea. They plan to produce many scores of educational films, recordings and feature articles.

“We expect sensational results,” he writes to the PIM. “No one knows what is going on in those abysses near the Philippines and Tonga. Little is known about the living things in those appalling depths. Already, our public is anticipat ing dragons and sea-monsters!”