OCEANOGRAPHY 191 



we can arrive at a satisfactory territorial sea ; but until Tve get more 

 in the way of research and common understanding-, I think it is going 

 to be very difficul t . 



Mr. Chapman. Quite so, and that is particularly pertinent to these 

 particular hearings ni two respects, sir : not only in respect of the prob- 

 lem of overfishing and conservation which must advance on the basis 

 of additional knowledge, but also on the basis of straight survey 

 oceanography. 



If I may divert a little bit to comment on what came up in the Law of 

 the Sea Conference in its terminal days and aifected the voting mate- 

 rially, there was a position taken by Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, pri- 

 marily, which was based on their concept that the ocean adjacent to 

 their coast is a unique thing — that it requires to be treated uniquely 

 from the standpoint of jurisdiction. Their political decision which 

 was registered there by votes adverse to the United States was based 

 almost entirely on a lack of oceanographic knowledge in that area of 

 the world and this lack of knowledge there will, by a lack of having 

 decision at Geneva, affect materially your salmon and trawl operations 

 in the Gulf of Alaska, Bristol Bay, and the Bering Sea. 



It is peculiar how these various problems around the world affecting 

 the law of the sea are all interwoven. A decision taken in one of them 

 will affect all of the rest of them also. 



One of the things we are very much interested in in our area of the 

 world is pushing forward the oceanographic investigations along the 

 Chile-Ecuador-Peru area not because we anticipate making any money 

 out of the oceanographic results that will be forthcoming therefrom, 

 but in their application to the diplomatic efibrts of the United States 

 in respect of the law of the sea ; and this is just as important to us as if 

 they were showing us where to catch tuna. 



]Mr. Pellt. If I might inject at this point. a\Ir. Chairman— I just 

 want to say that the fishing intei-ests of the Pacific Xorthwest agree 

 with you 100 percent in our area. We want to push basic research 

 and hope through that channel to achieve conservation and under- 

 standing and political unity. 



Mr. Chapmax. Yes. I might mention for the committee's benefit, 

 one such project that is being carried forward now by the Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries at the joint request of all of the fishing indus- 

 tries of the Pacific coast from San Diego to Juneau. That is the 

 work being carried forward by Dr. Sette and his group at the Stan- 

 ford Laboratory of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries which has as 

 its primary objective the analysis of two sorts of data — sea surface 

 temperatures and barometic pressures that have been accumulating 

 for many years by ship captains sending them in to the Weather 

 Bureau. 



The work that has gone forward in that Laboratory so far is aimed 

 at providing a mechanism for predicting from the weather and sur- 

 face temperature records the success of fishing throughout the whole 

 of the eastern Pacific. 



This illustrates very^ well the problem which the committee here is 

 up against. 



The first lot of data that came to this Laboratory consisted of 5 

 million separate cards with information on them. I think this is one 

 of the places from which generated this desire by all hands involved 

 to have a national data center for oceanographic information because 



