272 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



Our immediate needs also include more laboratory space. Our 

 architects presently will complete plans for a new laboratory having 

 approximately 45,000 square feet of space. Additional land must be 

 procured for later expansion and equipment must be available for 

 proper exploitation of these facilities. 



With an expanded fleet our docks will be completely inadequate 

 and must be rebuilt and extended. 



These are only the needs that are urgently upon us within the com- 

 ing year. Clearly this will be just a beginning and the more complete 

 program as detailed by the Brown Committee and in TENOC must 

 be fully implemented in the coming decade. We will continue to 

 work energetically for private support of our research work but the 

 f ulfiillment of such programs cannot be done without Federal funds, 

 the support of Congress and the understanding and support of all 

 the people of this great land. Because of this we once again applaud 

 your sincere interest in oceanography. 



The details of our current scientific program are given in the follow- 

 ing statements prepared by senior members of our staff. 



The Chairman. And now we will hear from Mr. Columbus O'D. 

 Iselin. 



STATEMENT OF C. O'D. ISELIN 



Mr. Iselin. This is a short history of the Woods Hole Oceanographic 

 Institution. 



The concrete events that led to the establishment of the Woods Hole 

 Oceanographic Institution were, briefly, the appointment by the Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences of a Committee on Oceanography; the 

 presentation by the latter, in the autumn of 1929, of a report on the 

 scope and problems of oceanography and on the status of this science 

 in North America; the adoption of this report by the Academy, with 

 recommendations to the Rockefeller Foundation that an independent 

 oceanographic institution be established on the east coast of North 

 America; and the action of the foundation in granting a sum of 

 $3 million for building a laboratory and a ship and for endownment. 



It was decided to establish the new facility at Woods Hole, and, with 

 the help of the Carnegie Corp., a piece of waterfront was acquired 

 from the Marine Biological Laboratory. 



The institution, incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts, re- 

 ceived its charter on the 6th of January 1930. The act of incorporation 

 states as purposes: "To prosecute the study of oceanography in all 

 its branches; to maintain a laboratory or laboratories, together with 

 boats and equipment and a school for instruction in oceanography 

 and allied subjects * * *." 



By the summer of 1931 the institution was a going concern with a 

 brick laboratory, a seagoing vessel — the Atlantis — and a small part- 

 time staff recruited largely from eastern university campuses. Dr. 

 Henry B. Bigelow was the distinguished first director. He had served 

 as the executive secretary of the National Academy of Sciences' com- 

 mittee, and his book, "Oceanography," published in 1931, sunnnarizes 

 the hopes and expcctatioi^s of oceanography that had stimulated the 

 Rockefeller Foundation to "i-)rime the pump." Its success is indi- 

 cated by the fact that today the annual budget of the institution is 

 equal to the original Rockefeller grant, which covered building, ship, 

 and endowment. 



