34 ADVANCEMENT OF MARINE SCIENCES 



Although the United States, as the paramount leader of a 

 confederation of nations held together by the sea, absolutely 

 requires it to have (with its confederates), command of the sea 

 and knowledge about how it works, it is being outdistanced 

 in the rate of acquiring knowledge about the sea, and the 

 use of the sea's resources, by its chief competitor, Russia and 

 its allies. 



Indeed — 



Dr. Chapman continued — 



within the confederation of the free world, smaller nations 

 such as Japan, England, Denmark, Norway, Germany, and 

 France — not the United States — have been noted heretofore 

 for their ocean researches and have built the history of ocean 

 research to which we have lately come. 



Dr. Chapman stated that the ocean research establishment of this 

 Nation is "very little better off for funding that it was 3 years ago," 

 and added that "in certain respects it is worse off." 



We view the primary purpose of this bill — 



Dr. Chapman concluded — 



to be the drawing together into one skein of all these threads 

 of ocean research in tlie executive establishment so that that 

 skein as a unit will bulk large enough to require budget officers 

 to allow sufficient moneys to be allocated to the whole of the 

 ocean research establishment in the Nation so that it can ac- 

 complish its appointed tasks and responsibilities. 



Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus, director of the Institute of Technology at 

 the University of Minnesota, a member of the Committee on Oceanog- 

 raphy, and a distinguished scientist in the fields of both meteorology 

 and oceanography, also touched on the paucity of funding for oceanog- 

 raphic research in his book "Turn to the Sea", stating: 



Even though I was one of those who early urged that our 

 Government should support the development of research 

 vehicles such as satellites and I'ockets to probe space, I won- 

 der now whether enthusiasm and the propaganda race in 

 space are perhaps causing us to overemphasize outer space 

 at the expense of understanding unknown reaches of the 

 earth on which we live. 



I do not suggest that we cut back materially the exciting 

 exploration of space, but merely point out that for a com- 

 paratively tiny sum we could preserve a balance in investi- 

 gating our own earth which, as I have stressed, is a most con- 

 venient and accessible laboratory to understand the prob- 

 lems of the universe. 



Much of the undersea landscape, hidden from our eyes,^ 

 is less well known than the face of the moon that we see. 

 With minerals resting on it, nutrients sinking toward it, geo- 

 logic history locked in the sedimentary layers, and petroleum 

 beneath it, the sea's bottom is at least as interesting, and 

 certainly more immediately useful to mankind, than the 

 moon's back side. 



