68 EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 



problem is still in the communication of information from the buoy 

 over long distances. 



Mr. Bauer. Are you familiar, Mr. McKernan, with HEW's plans 

 in Lake Michigan to put out a hundred telemetering buoys with the 

 development of the instrumentation that is being done by the Army 

 Engineers? 



Mr. McKernan. I am generally familiar with this; yes, Mr. Bauer. 

 Mr. Bauer. As I understand, Woods Hole has put out a string 

 of telemetering buoys for some years, also. 



Mr. McKernan. Well, I think Mr. Richardson has been doing 

 some pioneering work in this field, and some very excellent work. 

 He now has this string of buoys that extend out from New England, 

 and I believe these are quite successful. They are being watched verv 

 carefully by all of the scientists interested in buoy systems, but I am 

 sure that no one believes that these are the final production models 

 at the present tune. 



I believe, incidentally, Mr. Bauer, that all of these buoys store their 

 information, rather than send it. This, of course, brings problems, 

 you have to come and pick up the information. What we are search- 

 ing for, of course, is being in a position not to have to go out once a 

 week or once a month to collect the information. I think also there 

 are limited sensor points on this particular buoy. The accumulation 

 of mformation at various depths is still a problem that none of us have 

 solved to my satisfaction. 



Mr. Bauer. Now, one further question with respect to standard- 

 ization of instrumentation. Is this something new? 



Mr. McKernan. Oh, no. This standardization of instrumentation 

 has been a subject of discussion among scientists interested in the 

 oceans and in other fields for, I suppose, centuries. It is being given 

 a great deal of attention at the present time both nationally and 

 internationally. 



The works of ICES in the North Atlantic, Northeast Atlantic, is 

 very excellent work but I would point out that the countries who are 

 members of ICES have come into the IOC, the Intergovernmental 

 Ocean ographic Commission, and are requesting further study and de- 

 velopment of standardization of oceanographic equipment on an 

 international basis. So there is a great deal yet to be learned about 

 what is the best, on how to standardize various pieces of equipment. 

 I presume this could go on forever, because the development of new 

 oceanographic instruments will probably go on forever, and these will 

 take various forms in different counties for different specific purposes, 

 and therefore, there will always be a need for further standarization 

 of these instruments, as they are developed independently by scien- 

 tists, even within a single country. 



Mr. Bauer. It is rather remarkable, because in the hearings in 

 the last session of this Congress, Dr. Fye testified that standardization 

 was not necessary. 



Mr. McKernan. Well, I am sure you will get many different ideas 

 about this, almost as many as you have scientists. I believe most of 

 us in Government believe that there is a great need for standardization, 

 especially with respect to survey instruments. 



Dr. Fye, of course, being an outstanding research scientist, would 

 see the development of instruments in a very normal fashion as the 

 development of a special instrument to handle a special problem with 



