Inconstant Pole

The U.S. Air Force announced last week, after a year's reconnaissance in the Arctic, that it had discovered two new magnetic north poles. That brought the total to four (including magnetic and true poles).

The old magnetic pole of the geography books, the U.S.A.F. added, had moved from Canada's bleak Somerset Island, where it had last been reported (TIME, Nov. 4, 1946), over 100 miles to Prince of Wales Island. The two newcomers, both "local poles," turned up on Bathurst Island and Boothia Peninsula; and the whole magnetic field, the U.S.A.F. said, is contained in one big ellipse (see map).

The Air Force admitted that the discoveries would not make much difference to navigation or to scientific theories. For reasons of security, the Air Force refused to pinpoint the new poles.

In Ottawa, the R.C.A.F., which had helped the U.S. expedition, received the news calmly. The Canadians have been doing a little mapping on their own, will soon announce the location of their own magnetic pole (just one) on Prince of Wales Island. The magnetic pole, according to the R.C.A.F., moves around quite a bit* --about 80 miles a day, usually (but not always) in an east-west direction--and at better-than-union hours: from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Since magnetic readings in the vicinity of the pole are believed to vary widely at different altitudes, and since all U.S. data was obtained from planes, the Canadians have a hunch that the three U.S. poles are really just one fast-stepping pole. Quipped one R.C.A.F. bigwig: "The Americans are always at least two better than we are."

* Scientists have long suspected the magnetic pole of shiftiness. Ever since Sir James Ross first located (or thought he located) it in 1832, the pole has been rediscovered periodically, usually in a new spot. As recently as last year crewmen of the Army's Hawaii-to-Egypt polar plane, Pacusan Dreamboat, found it at some distance from its old habitat on Boothia Peninsula.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.