In a recent paper (publis hed in Nachr. T echn. Zeitschr.) Volland proposes an analyti cal model of the earth· ionos phe re waveguid e which is claimed to be in basic agreeme nt with the predictions of t he semi e mpirical transmission formula of L W. Austin for frequ e ncies less than 300 kc/s. In this note, the Rat·earth ass umptions made by Volland are question e d an d any agreement of hi s res u lt with Austin's formula is a ttribut ed to a fortuitou s cancell ation of e rrors. It is rathe r interestin g to n ote that H . Volland [1964] has r ecently publi shed a pa per under th e title Bemer kungen zur Aus tin'schen Forme] (Re marks on Austin' s formula). This basic radio transmission formula was proposed b y L. W. Austin and pub]jshe d in the Bulletin of th e Bureau of Standards over 50 ye ars ago [Aus tin , 191 5]_ Volland proposes an analyti cal model of th e earth-ionospher e waveguid e whi c h i s claimed to be in basic agreement with the predictions of the semi-empirical A us tin formula for frequ en cies less than 300 kc /s. At the same time, Volland sta tes that a fl at-earth ass umption is adequate and he asserts that the curvature of th e earth leads onl y to second order correc tion s and, thus, may be neglected. Sin ce this latter state ment is in violent co ntradi c ti on to most of the r ecent th eoreti cal work on VLF and LF mode theory of propagati on, so me comments on Volland's paper are call ed for. To pro perly orient the reader , a bri ef survey of Vol land's formulation is giv e n. His model consists of a flat homoge neo us earth with a di electri c constant Ee and conductivity (Te. The ionos phere is r e presented by a reflecting level at a height h above the earth's surface_ His formula, in cylindrical coordinates (p, cp , z), for the vector potential of a vertical dipole source of moment II is given by