OCEANOGRAPHY 129 



Another point I would like to make is that during this postwar 

 period the Xavy support of oceanography has been extremely wisely 

 administered. The laboratories have been surprisingly free to work 

 in areas of greatest interest to their staffs. We should try to keep it 

 this way. Any good director of research knows that the one thing 

 not to do if his laboratory is to be productive is to try to tell people 

 what to think about. 



Xow as to some of the difficulties that we face in a continuing ex- 

 pansion of marine science, admittedly we have a training problem 

 on our hands, but I doubt that this is a serious one. The students 

 flock into fields where they see opportunities, and there are more op- 

 portunities for original research in oceanography than in a great many 

 other fields. It is a lot easier to get a Ph. D. thesis written in oceanog- 

 raphy than in physics, for example. There is still plenty of cream 

 to be skimmed off* and that is what students are looking for. If we 

 have places for them to go and if they see opportunities for jobs, they 

 will appear. 



A more serious difficulty, which has become evident to us on the 

 Academy Committee, is that through the obsolescence of the exist- 

 ing fleet of research and development ships we face a hump in the 

 1)uilding cui-A'e. We have not built any ships for a long time. We 

 have not converted many ships for a long time. If there is to be 

 steady expansion, we have to start building some ships. This makes 

 a budgetary hump. This is always a difficult thing to face. 



Finally, I have a few general remarks that I would like to make 

 about the benefits we can expect to come out of an accelerated oceano- 

 graphic program. The first benefit that I believe we will receive, the 

 one that is closest to reality, is more reliable and longer range weather 

 forecasts. By marrying oceanographic research to the rapid de- 

 velopments in meteorology' and by treating the whole system as one 

 heat engine, which it indeed is, we will get long-range weather fore- 

 castings I believe rather quickly. Of course, this benefits everybody. 



A second thing we will get and perhaps can get well within this 10- 

 year period M-e are talking alxiut is useful oceanograj^hic forecasts, 

 for-^casts that will predict the goings and the comings of fish. There 

 has been little emphasis in oceanography to date on forecasting. In 

 fact, we have resisted this obligation. We were a little afraid that 

 the forecasting would affect us as seriously as it has affected meteor- 

 ology. I think we are now quite ready to begin with oceanographic 

 forecasts. In fact, several types of forecasts are now being made on 

 a continuing basis. 



A third thing that I believe we are going to get out of all of this, 

 perhaps a little more slowly, is the beginnings of efficient farming of 

 the sea and the beginnings of environmental control in marine areas. 

 This may take us 20 years or so because this is one you do not want 

 to rush into until you are absolutely sure what effects you are going 

 to have. 



You might be interested in some thinking I have been doing of 

 recent months about the situation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 There it would be desirable to maintain an ice-free path up to the 

 cities at the head of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. You could do tliis 

 by running a pipeline down the deep channel, the drowned channel of 

 the St. Lawrence River, and by pumping compressed air in it, allow- 

 ing lubbles of compressed air to rise along this pipe, which would 



