OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES S 



I hope that this material will be useful to you and I will be happy 

 to make any other information available to you that I can. 



Mr, Miller. Could you give this committee for the record 

 a comparison as to tlie work that is being done in this country as 

 compared to other countries that are now engaged in oceanographic 

 research? 



Mr. Vetter. I am not sure exactly in what way this comparison is 

 best made. My own belief is that the United States is well in the 

 forefront of the scientific exploration of the sea. We have, in the 

 last 10 or 20 years developed considerable competence in this field and 

 have exceeded the level previously set in the European countries for 

 scientific activities in this area. 



Our rate of advance has been good. It has not been as rapid as it 

 has been in some other countries. The emphasis placed in our own 

 country is on two problems, on the fisheries aspect of marine research 

 and on the problems of defense. 



It has been in the latter field that we have advanced more rapidly. 



In Europe and in Japan, emphasis is placed on the fisheries prob- 

 lems, and in these areas they, I believe, have maintained a level of 

 activity that is equal to ours if not greater. 



Mr. Miller. How about deep-sea exploration. Who has led in 

 that field? 



Mr. Vetter. Deap-sea exploration has involved all of the major 

 powers, the United States, Japan, Great Britain, Russia. 



I think that, if you were to chart the world with little dots of differ- 

 ent colors according to different nationalities, that you would find a 

 fairly even distribution among observations made by our own country 

 and observations made by Russia, Great Britain, and Japan. 



The International Geophysical Year has stimulated a great deal of 

 activity in each of these four countries in the last 2 years. 



Mr. Miller. Do we need more scientists in this field ? Do we need 

 to encourage more men to go into it ? 



Mr. Vetter. Yes, sir ; we certainly do. 



Mr. Miller. Would you care to comment on that phase of the sub- 

 ject? 



Mr. Vetter. Our greatest need is to interest larger numbers of first 

 rate scientists in oceanography. There are now approximately 500 

 scientists in the United States that are devoting full time to studying 

 the oceans. This is a very small number in comparison with the 

 problem that they are trying to attack. They are forced to group 

 themselves in units, oceanographic institutions that are large enough 

 to be able to support a sliip and to operate teams at sea in order to 

 operate economically. 



If we are to really step up our activities in exploring the oceans 

 we have, of course, to train more people, get more scientists interested 

 in the field. 



Mr. Miller. Do you believe we should step up our activities in this 

 field? 



Mr. Veti'er. I do, sir. 



Mr. Miller. In spite of the fact that you indicate we are still 

 pretty much in the lead in the field, is there need to make additional 

 effort to secure information ? 



