394 ANNUAL RF^PORT SMITH.SONIAN INSTITUTION, 1961 



surprising if government and commerce alike begin charting off seg- 

 ments of ocean area for this purpose. 



Other potential industrial uses allied to the sea can be identified 

 even now. Hydroponic farming — growing plants and vegetables in 

 water containing the essential mineral nutrient salts, rather than in 

 soil — is in its infancy. But there are those who foresee that this 

 endeavor will necessarily become a very large one and tliat research 

 into the qualitative transformation and manipulation of sea water will 

 make it possible. Another important industry is evolving, based on 

 supplying equipment needed by the world's one million skin divers, 

 plus that of the salvage industry which has been tremendously stimu- 

 lated by new skin-diving techniques. This, too, is a trend likely to 

 accelerate on both business and pleasure bases. 



Of one thing we can be sure. As research into the sea and sea-re- 

 lated activities increases, industrial uses will be found for it which 

 today we cannot visualize. And new professions, unconjectured as of 

 now, are bound to grow with these new industries. 



THE SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE 



Wlien the United States inaugurated its space exploration program 

 in March 1958, the President's science advisers issued a statement in 

 which they observed : 



Scientific research has never been amendable to rigorous cost accounting in 

 advance. Nor, for that matter, has exploration of any sort. But if we have 

 learned one lesson, it is that research and exploration have a remarkable way 

 of paying off — quite apart from the fact that they demonstrate that man is alive 

 and insatiably curious. And we all feel richer for knowing what explorers and 

 scientists have learned about the universe in which we live. 



Moreover, as technology continues to take over and the hours of 

 the world's working day shorten, people must have purposeful and 

 creative things to do. The burgeoning quest for knowledge is ex- 

 pected to fill a large part of this inchoate vacuum. 



Perhaps the most immediate target of the knowledge seekers will 

 be earth itself, about which so much remains to be learned. A true 

 understanding of our own planet, its origin, composition, and what 

 makes it tick, will be one of the first big steps toward understanding 

 the universe. This, at least, is the allegation of the scientists, who 

 add that the key to better information about the earth very probably 

 lies with the sea. 



"Yet the sea," says the House Committee on Science and Astronau- 

 tics, "which represents 71 percent of the earth's surface, is mostly 

 unexplored. Scientific information is meager concerning the physical 

 and chemical properties of oceans and their currents, the biological 

 and mineral resources of, in, and under the sea, the relationship of the 



