364 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 64 



but pulses of high energy may soon be used to make fish swim straight 

 into a f mmel hose, thence to be pumped directly into the hold of the 

 factory ship. The most important sense a fish has is its chemical 

 sense, and this may be exploited by ringing a school with a repellant 

 to concentrate it and then luring it to an attracting chemical. Finally, 

 the fish may be rendered senseless by another chemical and swept 

 from the surface of the sea. They can be processed immediately in 

 floating factories which will look more like chemical engineering 

 plants than ships as we know them today. Around these factory ships, 

 cities will grow, especially in the most productive waters of the world 

 such as the Humboldt Current and Antarctic waters. The cities will 

 be made up of apartment ships with shopping centers, having protected 

 sea gardens between them, and airport ships. And, as other extensions 

 of the floating city grow, perhaps even "municipal" hydrofoil trans- 

 portation will be needed. 



Even more archaic than the primitive state of present day fishing 

 is the way we use (or don't use) the vegetation of the sea. It is true 

 that peoples in Asia use seaweed as an important part of their diet, 

 and in Japan it is grown on fences for ease of harvesting ; but in our 

 coimtry we use it only as a source of algin in ice cream, cosmetics, and 

 jellies. Surely just as the grasses of the land were developed to yield 

 the wheat, com, barley, rice, rye, oats, and even sugar for our daily 

 bread, seaweed can be cultivated to form an important part of our food. 



Even the useless poisonous living plants and animals in the sea 

 may be put to use. They are sources of important drugs, antibiotics, 

 and tranquilizers. We may separate the poisons from hideous sea 

 cucumbers and stingrays for our medicine cabinet and eat the rest. 



The most important need of life that comes to us from the sea is 

 fresh water, distilled naturally by the sun, condensed into rain or snow 

 and carried onto our lands. Until very recently the importance of 

 this sea resource was hardly appreciated because of its abundance. 

 Now, however, lack of fresh water is often the one critical factor not 

 only in the support of peoples in arid and semiarid lands, but also 

 in modern cities. Methods of producing fresh water artificially from 

 brackish or sea water are being vigorously pursued, and without ques- 

 tion, this will be a big industry of the future. As technology advances, 

 the cost of separating fresh water from salt will go down. As popu- 

 lation increases, the value of fresh water goes up. When these two 

 curves meet, the process is "economical." In parts of the world, such 

 as the oil towns of Arabia and isolated naval base islands in the Pacific, 

 they have already crossed. 



Half a dozen radically different methods of obtaining fresh w^ater 

 from the sea are now being tried. Distillation, emulating the natural 

 way the sun makes fresh water, is one which may not turn out to be 

 the most practical unless abundant solar or cheap nuclear power can 



