EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 191 



tion of our oceans. A man cannot sit down at an empty desk and say, "today 

 I will do research in oceanography." He must have the data to work with. 

 From these oceanwide surveys will come the basic facts, the data, on which this 

 country can base a strong and productive oceanographic research effort. The 

 oceanwide surveys will point up special areas and problems toward which the 

 research effort can be directed. 



Toward this end, the Ocean Survey Advisory Panel has — in addition to develop- 

 ing the survey program — also been working on a set of general instructions for 

 the conduct of oceanwide surveys. I have brought with me and will leave with 

 you for inclusion in the record the preliminary draft of these instructions worked 

 up by the Panel. We have recently decided to go ahead with a full manual for 

 carrying out the work at sea on these surveys. This manual, when completed, 

 will be an interagency manual, probably published through the National Oceano- 

 graphic Data Center. It will be looseleaf, so that as changes in techniques are 

 developed the manual can be brought up to date. It will be a long task, but the 

 Panel feels that such a manual is essential in order that data collected by differ- 

 ent ships at different times will be compatible, and so that all data will be in a 

 form readily able to be assimilated into the National Oceanographic Data Center. 

 This idea of a concerted effort to learn more about the world ocean is not an 

 idea limited to a few members of the Federal Government. It was most recently 

 put forward in this country by the National Academy of Sciences Committee on 

 Oceanography, and the present plan of the Ocean Surveys Advisory Panel follows 

 quite closely the basic objectives set down in chapter 9 of the NASCO report. 

 This is neither a purely U.S. idea nor a new idea. The British Challenger Expe- 

 dition in 1872-76 was motivated by the same need. 



On April 27, 1927, the National Academy of Sciences adopted a resolution that 

 "The President of the Academy be requested to appoint a Committee on Ocea- 

 nography from the sections of the Academy concerned to consider the share of 

 the United States of America in a worldwide program of oceanographic research, 

 and report to the Academy." In T. Wayland Vaughan's report to the Academy 

 of 1937 entitled "International Aspects of Oceanography," he states "Ocea- 

 nography is necessarily a subject of worldwide extent * * *. It is obvious that 

 any comprehensive systematic investigation of the oceans must in large measure 

 be an international enterprise." The present NASCO Committee concurred in 

 this. The Ocean Surveys Panel concurs. The Soviet Union also concurs, and 

 I have here the Russian plan for oceanwide systematic investigations. The 

 printed material is a translation of an information paper submitted at the Copen- 

 hagen meetings in July of 1960. The large chart is the modification of this plan 

 submitted at the Paris meetings of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Com- 

 mission last fall. The Russian oceanographers and the U.S. oceanographers all 

 have the same end in mind — learning about the world ocean. I will leave these 

 interesting documents with your committee, Mr. Chairman, and you might wish 

 to insert them in the record, for they do show that the program we envisage and 

 on which we have started on a modest scale is one of international importance 

 and concern. 



The Surveys Panel helped in the preparation of the position papers for the 

 U.S. delegation to the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic 

 Commission at Paris last fall. The Panel prepared the background material and 

 wrote the U.S. Proposal on Oceanwide Systematic Investigations. I will leave a 

 copy of this background material and of the proposal itself for your committee. 

 Currently an ad hoc working group of the Surveys Panel headed up by Mr. 

 Vernon Brock of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries is developing the detailed 

 plans for the first national multiship cooperative investigation of a portion of the 

 world ocean to be carried out by various Government agencies. This is known 

 as the tropical Atlantic investigation. The plan as originally put forward had 

 as its purpose "To provide environmental data essential for pelagic fisheries 

 research and to contribute substantially to the understanding of the oceanography 

 of the eastern tropical Atlantic." The program was initiated to coincide with 

 inshore trawler surveys being supported through the former ICA and would pro- 

 vide offshore data on a singularly interesting portion of the Atlantic. Already 

 the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and the Navy have cooperated on this pro- 

 gram by having BCF biologists aboard Navy vessels in the general area collecting 

 valuable data on the physical and biological oceanography. This program worked 

 very well, and BCF has just completed a set of instructions so the Navy ships 

 can continue this work without the necessity of having biologists aboard. Just 

 yesterday a planning session for this tropical Atlantic investigation was held at 

 the data center with representatives from all of the Government agencies con- 

 cerned and from several of the private oceanographic institutions. A good plan 



