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...