Fliil. RF- 8. Tht' rafi .\<>n«*» offers crampoH quarl«T> to the 

 objicrvrr, who >il> in a wiiiHonod cai^'-on with a 360-d('gree 

 \i('\% of ihi" *irran art>un(l him. Thr rafl ha> i»ro\<'d useful 

 in sluHies of ihe fi^h cominunilies of the upper laver of 

 lh<> oe<>an. 



especially designed for fishery-oceanography research, the 

 first nuclear submarine to be used for nonmilitary purposes. 

 All the advance planning for this addition to the Nation's 

 research capability has been done at our Laboratory and 

 will be di.scussed later. Obviously, the submarine will have 

 enormous possibilities for enlarging man's knowledge of 

 the behavior of creatures in the sea. 



The new sonar and the research submarine — these are 

 exceedingly complex instruments for research. They make 

 demands on many types of technical skills and cost a great 

 deal of money. They are characteristic of much of the con- 

 duct of science of the latter half of the 20th century. But 

 complexity and great cost are not necessarily the sole hall- 

 marks of progress. The past months have seen some good 

 science done at our Laboratory with a piece of equipment 

 that was technologically feasible at least 2,000 years ago 

 when Alexander the Great made his celebrated descent in 

 a diving bell to the floor of the Mediterranean. 



A Log With a View 



Fishes collect around logs and other flotsam at sea. This 

 habit is commonly exploited in sport fishing, and some small 

 commercial fisheries have been based upon it. A few years 

 ago, Reginald M. Gooding built what is essentially "a log 

 with a view," a small raft equipped with a many-windowed 

 caisson beneath the waterline. Tested first off the island 

 of Hawaii, the raft Nenue proved seaworthy. The informa- 

 tion she provided was found worth collecting. Early in 1964, 

 the Nenue was shipped aboard the Churles H. Gilbert to 

 equatorial waters. There she undertook two drifts, one of 

 8 days, the other 9. During daylight, she was manned at 

 all times by two observers. Among them, Gooding, Magnu- 

 son, and Randolph K. C. Chang .spent 276 hours observing 

 the behavior of fishes under the dazzling canopy of the sea 

 surface (fig. 8). The raft allowed them to obtain some 

 striking photographs (fig. 9). 



What did they find? When the raft was first put in the 

 water, no fish were to be seen. Within 10 minutes the first 

 of them arrived, little rudderfish that are cousins of the 

 Hawaiian nenue for which the raft is named. Dolphin fish, 

 known as mahimahi in Hawaii, appeared. They mingled 

 with triggerfish, close relatives of the Hawaiian humuhumu- 

 nukunukuapuaa, and many others. Within a short time, 

 numerous fishes had been sighted. By the end of the longer 



10 



