190 EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 



familiar with the research objectives of the research portion of the national 

 oceanographic program, know the ship scheduling plans developed through the 

 Ships Panel, the instrumentation developments and plans being worked on 

 through the Instrumentation and Facilities Panel, the manpower problems in- 

 volved through participation in the work of the Manpower and Training Panel, 

 and the international aspects of the survey program have already been discussed 

 in meetings of the newly formed Panel on International Programs. When a 

 subject overlaps the areas of two panels, they meet together. For example,, 

 members of the Surveys Panel and the Ships Panel met with scientists from the 

 private oceanographic institutions last September to go over the plans for the- 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey's new oceanographic survey ship; and recently a plan 

 developed in Hawaii for cooperative surveys to provide the data for the solution 

 of a specific research problem in the central Pacific was presented at a joint meeting 

 of the Research and the Surveys Panels. 



All this is merely to point out that in addition to the feed-in of material from 

 the various panels to the ICO as shown in the diagram presented by Chairman 

 Wakelin, there is also a vigorous exchange among the panels. They are anything 

 but self-contained and isolated from the other panels of the ICO. I felt that 

 this aspect of the ICO's operations was worth pointing out. 



But what of the Ocean Surveys Advisory Panel itself? The Panel — as do the 

 other panels — has a technical feed-in to the ICO during the planning stages of the 

 national oceanographic program for the coming fiscal year. We also have — as 

 have the other panels — prepared each year budget summaries of proposed agency 

 work in our particular field of panel responsibility. By doing this at several points 

 during the annual budget cycle, the ICO has been able to keep tabs on how the 

 budgetary support for the national oceanographic program as a whole is pro- 

 gressing. 



Although these two Panel activities require considerable time and effort on the 

 part of the Panel members, they are primarily staff functions to the ICO. The 

 real raisons d'etre of the Surveys Panel are, I feel, (1) the development of inter- 

 agency survey plans on the national level, and (2) the initiation and fostering of 

 operational cooperation — what I like to call cooperation at the "wet-deck" level. 

 With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to expand these two points a bit 

 and, iii so doing, point out some specific examples of the accomplishments of this 

 Panel. 



One of the first tasks of the Ocean Surveys Advisory Panel was to prepare a 

 national program for the systematic investigation of the world ocean. This was a 

 monumental task. To accomplish it, we appointed an ad hoc working group com- 

 posed of representatives of the agencies most concerned, and chaired by Capt. 

 C. N. G. Hendrix, at that time attached to the Navy Hydrographic Office. The 

 program went through many revisions. It contained, at its stage of maximum 

 thickness, chapters on navigational control, on the survey needs of all the various 

 agencies, and of the nongovernmental oceanographic community, and even pre- 

 sented silhouettes of the various oceanographic ships that might be involved in 

 such surveys. I have a copy of this volume with me today. Subsequently the 

 written version of the U.S. national program for oceanwide surveys was con- 

 siderably conden-ed, and in its present form has been transmitted to the ICO and 

 submitted to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Oceanography for 

 their comments. I will gladly leave a copy of this document with you today for 

 inclusion in the record. 



Your committee, Mr. Chairman, has heard over the past few years a great 

 deal of testimony on this Nation's need for more knowledge of the seas. There 

 is one point, however, that I would like to reemphasize in connection with our 

 need for a U.S. oceanwide survey program. We must have maps of the ocean. 

 By this I do not mean only navigational charts — although we need these too. 

 I mean good base maps of the shape of the sea floor, of its gravitational and 

 magnetic characteristics, of the distribution of its bottom sediments, of the cur- 

 rents — both surface and subsurface — of the temperature and its variation as well 

 as that of the other physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the 

 oceans. Before any land area can be developed and exploited, base maps are 

 necessarv. The same is true of the oceans; yet while, on one hand, we say that 

 United States must exploit the seas for our general welfare — even for our very 

 survival— on the other hand, we are forced to say that our maps of the sea are 

 not as good as were those of North America at the time of the Lewis and Clark 

 Expedition in 1805. This, Mr. Chairman, is indeed a singularly deplorable situa- 

 tion, and it is toward the remedying of this situation that the Ocean Surveys. 

 Panel has developed our plan for oceanwide surveys — the systematic investiga- 



