The future of world magnetic surveying

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Abstract
The secular geomagnetic variation necessitates continual repetition of world magnetic surveying. Since iron ships displaced wooden ones, ocean magnetic surveying requires special non-magnetic ships; it practically ceased when the Carnegie was lost in 1929, and the subsequent secular geomagnetic changes are imperfectly known. Magnetic surveying is slow; one ship or one land party makes measurements at only one or two stations daily. These stations may not be representative of the area over which they chiefly determine the local course of the isomagnetic lines on the charts. In drawing the charts, some well-defined smoothing process is desirable; continuous magnetic measurements along a world network of lines would best serve this purpose. If such records could be made on aeroplanes, a world magnetic survey might require only two or three years; research into this possibility is desirable.

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