Science: Word from a Raft

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The seagoing raft Kon-Tiki, modeled after an ancient Peruvian balsa, is carrying six Scandinavian adventurer-anthropologists on a voyage of historical induction (TIME, April 21). After four days of radio silence, the raft was heard from again last week. Present position: about 1,300 miles east of the Marquesas. For a fortnight after the Kon-Tiki left Callao, Peru, the Peru current carried it northwest nearly to the equator. Then the south equatorial current and the southeast trade wind took over and pushed the raft due west across the Pacific. Drifting 40 to 50 miles a day, it was now well ahead of schedule and had covered more than half of the distance (5,000 miles) between Callao and its goal, Tahiti.

According to reports from its feeble radio, often picked up by "hams," the Kon-Tiki's voyage had been reasonably uneventful. There had been one moderate storm, which did not endanger the buoyant raft. Whales, dolphins and sharks had played around her slowly drifting hulk, and the crew caught lots of fish.

If the Kon-Tiki reaches Tahiti or the Marquesas, leader Thor Heyerdahl will claim to have proved his favorite anthropological theory: that ancient Peruvians in original-model balsas may have covered the same route many centuries ago.