362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 64 



of water, the currents, or the nature of the ocean bottom there if he 

 does not know precisely where "tliere" is. Now that the Polaris mis- 

 sile can be launched from the sea, the Navy must also know the exact 

 launching point in order to aim. 



Navigation of the future will be done more and more under water. 

 Although submarines have thus far been used principally for military 

 purposes, the advantages of traveling below the disturbed interface 

 between ocean and atmosphere with its waves, windstorms, and ice 

 mean that submarine freight and passenger travel, as well as a variety 

 of submarine vessels for research purposes, will undoubtedly be devel- 

 oped. Under water the navigational problems are even greater. The 

 navigator must have complete maps of the bottom topography, the 

 gravimetry, magnetic anomalies, and the nature of the sea bottom. He 

 must have instruments to detect these so that he may "see" where he 

 is just as a land or air traveler sees his position on ordinary maps. He 

 will also, for regular routes, have a beacon system under the sea, as 

 airplanes have in the air; thus, he will home from beacon to beacon. 

 The other age-old use that men have made of the sea is to gather 

 their food from it. It is not immediately obvious that studies of life 

 in the sea are important to the Navy, but in fact, the Navy has given 

 considerable support to work in marine biology. Two obvious exam- 

 ples of direct naval significance are research on marine fouling orga- 

 nisms and the noises that animals make in the sea that confuse hydro- 

 phone listening. Unquestionably, studies of life in the sea will find 

 increasing importance, not only for the needs of people in peacetime 

 but also for military applications. 



Food from the sea is not properly exploited. On the one hand, some 

 desirable species of fish are overfished to the extent of threatening 

 extermination ; on the other hand, some are not used at all. Countries 

 having ample food within their land boundaries, such as the United 

 States, use less fish than heavily populated countries surrounded by 

 the sea, such as Japan. Only 5 percent of our protein comes from the 

 sea as compared to the world average of 12 percent. This world aver- 

 age must inevitably increase with population growth. There are other 

 factors which affect the use of protein from the sea. Even in protein- 

 poor countries such as India, abundant fish from the Indian Ocean 

 are not extensively used. This is partly due to the difficulty of preserv- 

 ing fish without expensive refrigeration in hot lands. Modern can- 

 ning and dehydration can surmount these difficulties. Education to 

 overcome taboos and use protein-rich, nonspoilable fish flour can pro- 

 vide the necessary supplement to the diet of one-fourth of the world's 

 population which is undernourished now. 



If we harvested this renewable source of food properly, we do not 

 know whether we could steadily take five times the present amount out 

 of the sea or a hundred times that amount. Marine biological and 



