186 



The House apparently agreed. No separate vote was taken on the 

 Mohole cut and the appropriation bill was passed by a vote of 296 to 

 82 with 54 not voting.®* 



An effort was made to restore the cut in the Senate. The Subcom- 

 mittee on Independent Offices Appropriations held 2 days of hearings 

 on Mohole (May 25 and June 13), at which some 8 witnesses testified 

 in support of the project. Many Members of the Senate gave testi- 

 mony or communicated expressions of support, and a number of State 

 Governors sent letters of support. On May 25. 3 technical witnesses 

 from outside the Government made presentations. They were: 

 Prof. Harry H. Hess of Princeton University. 

 Dr. George P. Woollard, president of the American Geophysical 



Union and director of Hawaii Institute of Geophysics. 

 Dr. Grover E. Murray, chairman, U.S. National Committee on 

 Geology, Gulf Universities Research Corp., and also repre- 

 sentative and past president of the American Association of 

 Petroleum Geologists, professor of geology at Atlanta State 

 University, vice president of Louisiana State University, and 

 president-elect of Texas Technical College. 



Professor Hess, who had been present at the inception of the Mohole 

 project, enumerated its many scientific and practical benefits. In re- 

 sponse to a question from Senator Allott, he admitted to a share of 

 responsibility for the early miscalculation as to its cost. ("We were 

 scientists and not engineers, and we took rough guesses at what the 

 cost of this sort of project would be." Also, "* * * We were largely 

 doing it on a shoestring or trying to * * *.") ^^ 



The second technical witness was Dr. G. P. Woollard, whose aca- 

 demic affiliations were nearest to the proposed Mohole drilling site, and 

 who accordingly had a special professional interest in the project. He 

 reviewed the geological aspects of Mohole, referred— as did most of the 

 other witnesses — to the possibility of Russian achievements in deep 

 drilling, and sugarested that knowledge of the mantle might contribute 

 to an understanding of earthquakes, improve the detection of illicit 

 nuclear tests, and help to establish U.S. claims to mineral risrhts on 

 the Continental Shelf. The availability of a stable floating platform in 

 deep water would also have important "direct" benefits for oceano- 

 graphic research.®^ 



Dr. Grover E. Murray described Mohole as a scientific and engineer- 

 ing project "of the very highest order of priority to the earth scien- 

 tists of the United States whose responsibility it is to maintain and 

 to locate new reserves of minerals and natural resources of all kinds." 

 The Mohole platform would be beneficial, he said, in furtherance of 

 oceanographic research that, in turn, had important implications for 

 national availability of essential industrial materials, and would con- 

 tribute to meet the food requirements presented by the population 

 explosion.^'' 



M Ihifl.. T>. 9760. 



^ U.S. Congrpss. Senate. Committee on Appropriations. Indepenrlpnt Offices Appropria- 

 tions for Fiscal Tear 1867. Hearings before tlie subcommittee of the * * * on H.R. 14921, 

 Making Appropriations for Sundry Indepenflent Executive Bureaus. Boards. Commis- 

 sions. Corporations. Agencies. Offices, and the Department of Housing: and Urban De- 

 velopment for the Fiscal Tear Ending June 30, 1967. and for Other Purposes. Pt. 2, 

 Mnv 24. 1966-.Tune 14. 1966. 89th Cong.. 2d sess. Pt. 2. (Washington, U.S. Government 

 Printing Office. 19661. pp. 1245-1253, especially p. 1250. 



68 Ibid., pp. 12.'53-1267. 



"T Ibid., pp. 1268-1277. 



