116 OCEANOGRAPHY 



STATEMENT OF DR. JOEL W. HEDGPETH, MARINE BIOLOGIST; 

 DIRECTOR, PACIFIC MARINE STATION, DILLON BEACH, CALIF. 



Dr. Hedgpeth. Mr, Chairman, I have a short prepared statement 

 liere that, with your permission, I would prefer to simply summarize, 

 and insert some i-emarks that occurred to me in listening to the other 

 testimony. 



(Dr. Hedgpeth's prepared statement follows :) 



Statement ob^ Joel W. Hedopeth Concerning H.R. 9861 



My name is Joel W. Hedgpeth. I am director of Pacific Marine Station, a 

 marine laboratory maintained by the College of the Pacific at Dillon Beach, 

 Calif., about 5.5 miles north of San Francisco. In addition to administrative 

 duties, I am also professor of zoology and devote part of my time to teaching 

 zoology and directing graduate students. Today, however, I am appearing 

 before this committee in re.sponse to an invitation from the Honorable George P. 

 Miller, chairman, extended through the American Institute of Biological Sciences. 

 There are almost 100,000 biologists in this country and Canada. A large number 

 of these biologists, perhaps 10 percent or more, are directly concerned in one 

 way or another with aquatic biology, with the phenomena of life and the action 

 of living processes in the aquatic environment, whether fresh, brackish, or 

 marine. Although marine bilogists in particular comprise a large group of 

 scientists with diverse interests, ranging from such matters as the action of 

 different types of chlorophyll found in various seaweeds to the energy budget of 

 bottom-dwelling worms and clams, I am confident that I speak for all of them 

 in saying that we are gratified by the consideration being given to the problems 

 of oceanography and marine biology by the committee, that we are awaiting with 

 interest the result of the committee's deliberations and that w^e are ccmfident 

 this committee will design a reasonable, imaginative and sound program to 

 promote research in this important field of science. 



We feel that this bill marks a distinct advance in the status of oceanography 

 and marine biology on the national level, and earnestly hope that the objectives 

 of the bill will be achieved. I think that I can best contribute to this end by 

 presenting, for the benefit of this committee, a brief discussion of the present 

 status of aquatic biology, how it fits into a general program for oceanography, 

 and what the future needs and prospects for aquatic biology are. You will note 

 that the term "aquatic biology" is used rather than "marine biology." We do 

 this because it is not only difficult at times to distinguish between marine and 

 fresh water biology because of the similar approaches, but also because some of 

 the same people carry on studies involving situations in lakes and streams and 

 in the oceans. I my.self have published papers (m fresh water .shrimp, oi-ganisms 

 found in desei't brine i>ools, and on bottom animals from 2 miles beneath the 

 surface of the sea. Furthermore, we prefer to consider marine and fresh water 

 biology together because it is often necessary to work with physiological prob- 

 lems involving the transition from fresh to salt water, and because many marine 

 biologists fir.st learn their subject by starting in fresh water. However, for the 

 most part we are concerned with mai-ine biology because the oceans constitute 

 by volume some two or three hundred times the living sjiace available on land 

 or in fresh water, and there is no part of the ocean without some life in it. Our 

 point here is that we cannot always distinguish between marine and fresh water 

 biology, and we hope that the ultimate version of this bill will recognize this 

 problem by avoiding a too-rigid definition of the fields to be included. 



Marine biology itself is not a simple subject but is simply the study of life in 

 the sea. If it has any distinct characteristics from other tyi)es of biology, it 

 is the concern with those processes involving living organisms in a three-dimen- 

 sional environment that is also the medium by which most of the essential 

 ingredients for those processes are carried about. Thus we have the hosts of 

 organisms that live by sieving or accumulating finely suspended or dissolved 

 materials from the medium. Indeed, without life in the ocean most of the 

 problems involving the disposal of radioactive materials in the sea would not 

 exist. In fact, without life in the ocean, most of the problems of physical 

 oceanography would be of little interest to the average man. It is because there 

 are fishes and strange creatures in the sea that we have so much popular in- 

 terest in oceanography. Most scientists, I am sure, consider oceanography as 

 a synthesis of what we study in the sea. As such, it embraces all sciences and 



