OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 5 



Mr. Sumner Pike is well known in Washington for his services with 

 the Atomic Energy Conmiission. He was at one time a Commis- 

 sioner of the AEC. He has considerable interest in the living re- 

 sources in the sea being involved in the herring fishery in Maine. 



Dr. Colin Pittendrigh, of Princeton University, is primarily a 

 biologist of considerable stature. Before coming to the Committee 

 on Oceanography, his interests were mainly centered on problems 

 of establishing controlled experiments that would re-create the en- 

 vironment for relatively small biological communities. 



Dr. Milner B. Schaefer is the director of the Inter- American Trop- 

 ical Tuna Commission, and has participated in many international 

 activities. He was one of the U.S. advisers to the recent Geneva con- 

 vention on the law of the seas. 



Athelstan Spilhaus is the dean of the Institute of Technology at 

 Minnesota. He has long been interested in the exchange of energy 

 between the atmosphere and the oceans. He is primarily a meteor- 

 ologist. He is the inventor of the bathythermograph, an instrument 

 which has very wide use now and has had for many years since the 

 war to measure the temperature structure in the surface of the ocean. 



Dr. Harrison Brown, before being asked to be Chairman of this 

 Committee, had no connection with oceanography. His primary in- 

 terests are in geochemistry. He is head of the Department of Geo- 

 chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. 



Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, have you any questions ? 



The Chairman. No. 



Mr. Miller. j\Ir. Dorn? 



Mr, DoRN. I think at the outset we should have a deliuition of 

 oceanography. 



Mr. Vetter. My own definition is that oceanography is that which 

 involves any scientific work at sea including biological, geological, 

 physical, and chemical problems. 



In the oceans these problems all have to be studied in connection 

 with one another. 



Mr. DoRN. Then would not oceanography probably be the study of 

 the ocean and the land under it ? 



Mr. Vetter. This is a good definition, yes. I would call it the scien- 

 tific study of problems in the oceans. 



Mr. DoRN. Have you thought at all about the work this committee 

 can do to extend the study in the United States, implement it ? 



Mr. Vetter. Yes, I have. 



Mr. DoRN. Wliat do you think we should do ? 



Mr. Vetter. I think the committee should first consider the prob- 

 lem on the broadest possible basis, that you should attempt to de- 

 termine for your own satisfaction the extent to which a national 

 program should be implemented, what all the agencies are doing, how 

 much this amounts to in terms of manpower and dollars and in fields 

 of interest. I think this is absolutely necessary before the next step 

 can be made. 



The next step, I should think, would be to determine to your own 

 satisfaction whether this amount of activity in these fields is ade- 

 quate. If not, I would think it appropriate to decide what part of this 

 total program would come under the cognizance of this group and 

 determine then what should be done about increasing the activity in 

 this part of the field. 



