14 OCEANOGRAPHY 



One reason for this is, of course, the cagueness of definition of what 

 the waters immediately outside the United States and its possessions 

 are. 



The Survey has, in general, interpreted this to mean waters on the 

 Continental Shelf or the continental slope, and beyond the continental 

 slope they have made surveys but these have been essentially incidental 

 to their work on the shelf and the slope. They have not been part of 

 their planned program. They have simply been incidental as, for 

 example, their surveys in the Gulf of Alaska which were made when 

 the ships went from Seattle to Alaska using the gulf. Each time they 

 took as close survey lines as they could and were eventually able to 

 provide a pretty good map of the Gulf of Alaska based upon these 

 sounding lines of opportunity. 



In my own opinion, the map would have been better if it had been 

 done for its own sake rather than incidentally in passage. The navi- 

 gational control would have been better. 



The spacing of the lines would have been more carefully planned 

 and the lines would have been laid out in such a way that the accuracy 

 of different lines could be checked against each other. 



The Coast Survey and the Navy at one time were one organization. 

 The Survey ships were manned by naval officers with civilian engi- 

 neers to do the actual survey work. 



In the 1890's and early 1900's, the Congress was persuaded that this 

 system was not a satisfactory one and since that time the Coast Survey 

 ships have been manned by specially commissioned officers taken from 

 civilian life, trained as civil engineers, so that the entire survey organi- 

 zation from Admiral Karo on down have spent their lives in the busi- 

 ness of finding out about the eartli, obtaining information about the 

 shape of the earth, the topography of the surface, and, as I said, the 

 other features of the earth which are of national interest, such as the 

 magnetic field and the gravity field. 



The survey ships of the Coast Survey, therefore, have officers and 

 men who are career surveyors and wlio literally spend, for 20 years or 

 more, every year at sea conducting surveys of the very highest quality. 



In contrast, the Hydrographic Office is, of necessity, manned or is 

 controlled and supervised by career officers w^ho have many other expe- 

 riences, who have spent a relatively small part of their time in the sur- 

 veying business, and whose promotion and whose careers do not 

 depend upon surveys but upon how good tliey are as leaders of men 

 and as managers and as tacticians and as gunners and as experts in 

 electronics and all of the manifold complexities of the Navy. 



I have been in the Naval Reserve most of my life. I served in 

 the Navy for 7 years. What I have often said is that the interests 

 of the Navy and the interests of the country are identical, and one 

 can say this in a variety of ways. One way to put it is that every- 

 thing that is done in the TTnited States is of interest and importance 

 to the Navy. Everything that the Navy does is of interest and im- 

 portance to the United States, but just because of tliese very broad 

 interests, it seems desirable to me that the Navy should be able to 

 call upon and should be able to depend upon, without really con- 

 trolling, the efforts of other components of the Government, particu- 

 larly in this very highly specialized field of surveying where a life- 

 time of experience is essential for adequate planning and control. 



