300 EIGHTH PACIFIC SCIENCE CONGRESS 



problems. The major fisheries of India like the Sardines, the Mackerel, 

 the Sharks and other less known categories of fishes are all investigated 

 in detail in an attempt to understand the causes governing their abun- 

 dance, and the efficiency with which the fish are caught and utilized. 

 Subsidiary fishery resources like the prawns, the oysters, clams, etc. are 

 also receiving close attention. Sea weeds which occur in considerable 

 abundance in the sea and form a valuable raw material for the produc- 

 tion of agar and other industrial products, are being investigated in 

 detail to determine the extent of the resources. The third important 

 category of investigations come within the field of Marine Biology deal- 

 ing with the factors connected with the abundance of smaller forms of 

 plant and animal life which ultimately form the food of fish. This is 

 also correlated with studies on the chemistry of sea-water with a view 

 to understanding seasonal changes in the occurrence of nutrient salts. 

 Bacteriology of sea-water and fish products is also investigated with a 

 view to arriving at enforceable standards in the handling of fish prod- 

 ucts. The physiology of fish and other commercially important forms 

 of marine life are studied with a view to selecting suitable types that 

 would be ideal for large-scale culture in coastal areas v/hich could be 

 developed into marine fish farms. The institution maintains a good 

 library and a reference collection. 



Correlation of Oceanography and Fisheries 



In the above paragraphs some idea has been given of the ap- 

 proach to oceanographical and marine fisheries studies in India. There 

 is need for a standing machinery to collect and integrate synoptic data 

 on the hydrology and maritime meteorology of the waters that surround 

 India. The emphasis so far received has been biological and although 

 marine biological investigations on a considerable scale have been car- 

 ried out at Visakhapatnam, Madras, Mandapam, Trivandrum, Calicut 

 and Bombay, the full interpretation of these results has to await more 

 intensive physical-chemical work. Preliminary chemical data on phos- 

 phates, nitrates, nitrites and silicates are already available for Madras, 

 Mandapam and Calicut and it is hoped to extend these further in the 

 near future. The greatest drawback, however, lies in the fact that stu- 

 dies have principally been carried out in inshore or neritic waters with 

 few observations in the open sea. An attempt to obtain a clear picture 

 of oceanographic conditions in relation to Fisheries has now been 

 initiated by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Station from Bom- 

 bay utilizing the facilities of deep sea fishing vessels operating from 

 that port and especially in view of the excellent results in trawling 

 operations to the west of Kathiawar, which has now been found to be 



