Meinez Gravity Cruise. The yacht Marmion. Marmion Ridge?

Long-time Townsend Brown inquirer Jan Lundquist – aka 'Rose' in The Before Times – has her own substantial archive to share with readers and visitors to this site. This forum is dedicated to the wealth of material she has compiled: her research, her findings, and her speculations.
Post Reply
User avatar
Jan Lundquist
Keeper of the Flame
Posts: 351
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2023 7:19 pm
Spam Prevention: Yes

Meinez Gravity Cruise. The yacht Marmion. Marmion Ridge?

Post by Jan Lundquist »

As we pick our way through the maze it is often hard to know which is a relevant discovery and which is only a tangential, coincidental event.

Felix Vening Meinez the developer of the Gravimeter, was the Dutch Scientist behind the study carried on aboard the navy's S-21 submarine.
Scientist of the Day - Felix Vening Meinesz July 30, 2019https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/sc ... ng-meinesz

This "Gravity Cruise", took place during the International Polar year of 1932. The IPY was organized to satisfy "great scientific interest of geophysical conditions in the polar regions and the close interrelation which was known to exist between these conditions and the corresponding conditions in lower latitudes." {underlining mine]

The Second International Polar Year, 1932–33
V. LAURSEN 1949 https://www.nature.com/articles/164170a0

Twenty-seven year old LtJG, (USNR) Townsend Brown helped Meinez collect data, and then calculated the results. At the end of the cruise, he wrote a long and detailed report for the Navy. He notes that the Phase 2 study team arrived in Nassau on the yacht, Marmion. I may have uncovered the individual who headed that team, but he's not relevant to this story.

What makes me want to bang my head against the wall is that in doing an image search for Marmion, I located a recent undersea map of the Marmion ridge, showing an aluminium deposit nearby. It seemed to my untrained undersea map reading eyes, to be an offshore ridge in the Canadian latitudes. I looked at it and went "swipe right," as it was not pertinent to what I wanted to find.

But today, I wanted to revisit it, in light of what I just learned about the IPY of course, I can't find it. What makes me want to bang my head against the wall is that the nature of the Townsend Brown story is such that one can see connections everywhere if one wishes to see them. I wish I could unsee see this one. As scientists well know, "correlation does not equal causation." Or even relevance.

Until I learn otherwise, Marmion Ridge is not relevant to the story. But if it ever is, I will have at least noted it for future Brown hounds.
User avatar
Jan Lundquist
Keeper of the Flame
Posts: 351
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2023 7:19 pm
Spam Prevention: Yes

Re: Meinez Gravity Expedition Report

Post by Jan Lundquist »

I am sure this is online somewhere, but for convenient reference, I am attaching it here:
TownsendBrownGravityExpedition1932.pdf
(451.35 KiB) Downloaded 65 times
natecull
Keeper of the Flame
Posts: 437
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:35 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Meinez Gravity Cruise. The yacht Marmion. Marmion Ridge?

Post by natecull »

the yacht, Marmion
Townsend writes:
The ships docked at Nassau early on the morning of March 12. The second contingent of the expedition under the direction of Dr. R.M. Field
aboard the yacht Marmion arrived two days earlier. They had moved their gravity apparatus from one island to another and had completed 12 observations at representative geological positions. All members of the expedition were cordially received and entertained by the Governor of the Bahamas and the officials and citizens of Nassau.
The expedition ended at Miami, the equipment was packed and shipped to Baltimore, thence by truck to Washington, D.C. The film records of the last four gravity stations were developed and the final notes entered. After a brief rest at the home of Lt. Hugh Matheson, owner of the yacht Marmion, the scientific party returned north by train.
It's probably not relevant, but I imagine this Hugh might have been a descendant of the Marmion's original owner, Hugh Makay Matheson of Scotland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Math ... strialist)
Hugh Mackay Matheson (23 April 1821 – 8 February 1898) was a Scottish industrialist, businessman and minister who was a senior partner in Matheson & Company and founder of the Rio Tinto corporation. He also supported Presbyterian missions to China.
Hugh Matheson senior might have been a richer-than-kings mining capitalist, but in his favour he did oppose the Opium Wars, so that's good.

https://digitalcollections.library.miam ... 6/id/5205/
Written on box cover: "Photos taken from album page size 15" x 12", scanned and indexed 23.01 to 23.19. Album titled 'Hail Sailors, Jack + Jill.' Some good shoots of 'Azara,' Hugh M. Matheson's 113 foot three masted schooner. 'Babe,' a 30 foot Sparkman and Stevens design cutter. Biscayne Bay Yacht Club flag raising. Various boats in Coconut Grove and the Caribbean.".
Coverage Temporal 1920-1929
Coverage Spatial Key Biscayne (Fla.)
Coconut Grove (Miami, Fla.)
I don't imagine there's any link between "Azara" and "Azorian", but it's one of those little jolts one gets in research, seeing such a similar name. I'm sure it's more coincidence than anything. Once you start seeing industrialists clustering together in their native habitat (warm, tax-free Caribbean waters), you start seeing conspiracies everywhere. But it's not so much conspiracy as just business.

What's more hilarious (and which I think made me giggle as a teenager back in the 1980s when I first saw this document) is gravity field tests being done under the direction of a Dr R.M. Field.

Nate
Going on a journey, somewhere far out east
We'll find the time to show you, wonders never cease
Post Reply