192 OCEANOGRAPHY 



we had there on our hands so much data that it was impossible for a 

 human mind to comprehend it and get a grasp of it and yet in that 

 mass of data was the information wliich perhaps governed the suc- 

 cess of all of our fisheries on the Pacific coast. 



Putting this information through the newly developed electrical 

 collating machines is bringing it into some degree of order now. And 

 from this is already proceeding very useful results which we are be- 

 ginning already to put into practice by informing our fishermen of 

 predictable changes in surface temperatures which will afi'ect their 

 ability to catch a load of tuna quicker and, therefore, more cheaply ; 

 but we are most anxious to have this work proceed more rapidly and 

 we have been petitioning the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and 

 the Congress for more funds to boost up this Laboratory upon which 

 all of our other fisheries laboratories from Juneau to San Diego 

 depend for their results. 



This is one example where what is called basic research appears 

 to have great economic as well as basic significance. 



Mr. Miller. Before we leave entirely the law of the sea, the way I 

 look at it — heretofore the 3-mile limit was based on certain historic 

 principles and 40 years ago it was unthinkable that fishing vessels 

 should cross the Pacific, cross an ocean in the pursuit of fish. This 

 is not confined to the Pacific. I think the implications in the Atlantic 

 are just as great and as these new nations come into being, it will 

 become greater among the Asian-African bloc. So it is universal. It 

 was unthinkable that you would cross the ocean, and some of us are 

 never quite conscious of the fact that in this field like others, time 

 and distance has disappeared and we have to bring the law of the sea 

 into new perspective. 



We have been a little slow, perhaps, in doing it and the particular 

 phase that you point up to me is bringing out, developing biological 

 data and the biology of the sea, and being; able to bring it on into an 

 international concept and we are merely in the beginning of it. 



Perhaps a good many of us do not quite grasp its significance and 

 its importance, but if this committee can touch this off in Congrass, 

 I think we can take pride in saying that we were the first in Congress 

 to touch on this particular phase of it and we are making a contribu- 

 tion. And I am very happy to know that you recognize it. 



Mr. Chapman. I fully agree with your remarks, sir, and I would 

 like to illustrate them with an example or two. 



From your long acquaintance with the California fisheries, you 

 will realize that prior to the war we were not very far-ranging fisher- 

 men. We fished mostly the California coast and down along the 

 ]\Iexican coast and to some degi-ee soutli of that. 



The industiy at the present time in California operates vessels 

 steadily from southern British Columbia on the north in the Albacore 

 fishery in which your fishermen participate to northern Chile where, 

 I might say, your fishermen participate from time to time. 



Mr. Pelly. You liave been shot at a few times, I know. 



Mr. Chapman. We have been under great effort to prevent your 

 people from being shot at just like ourselves in the area. 



Kow we operate down off northern Chile, I say, about 3,800 or 

 3,500 miles from San Diego. If you draw a 3,000-mile radius out 

 into the Pacific based on San Dieiro, you encompass the wliole of 

 the Marquesas to Tuamotu, and the Hawaiian Islands and, as a matter 



