Nederlandse Commissie voor Geodesie 8, Delft, 1946. 23 pagina's.
ISBN-13: 978 90 6132 014 2. ISBN-10: 90 6132 014 3.
The Netherlands Geodetic Commission publishes here a study made during the war by Dr. J. E. baron de Vos van Steenwijk about the shape of the geoid and the plumbline deflections in East Indonesia as derived from the gravity data in this area. For the first time the formulas expressing these relations have been applied here in practice and the results justify the great labour involved in their computation.
It may be of interest to mention the circumstances which gave Dr. De Vos van Steenwijk leisure to accomplish this great self-imposed task. Having been dismissed by the German authorities as Burgomaster of the town of Haarlem because of his loyal attitude towards the national cause, he deemed himself no longer safe at home and with reason; his house was searched three times for taking him prisoner. Dr. De Vos van Steenwijk disappeared and went into hiding for the four remaining years of the war. This time of inaction gave him a good opportunity for taking up again his scientific studies, for which his university career at Leiden, where he doctorated in Astronomy in 1918, had qualified him. After the war Baron de Vos van Steenwijk resumed his official career. He is now Governor of the Province of North-Holland.
The map of this publication has been drafted by Dr. W. Nieuwenkamp, Professor of Geology at the university of Utrecht, and drawn by his assistant J.H.M. van Dijk.