ADVANCEMENT OF MARINE SCIENCES 37 



Eight of the Nation's leading industrial and agricultural States have 

 one to three lakes on their borders. 



Three of the Nation's largest cities are located on a Great Lake 

 and a fourth on the waterway between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. 

 These cities and 52 others share in the 120 million or more tons of 

 domestic cargo moved annually over Great Lake waters. Because no 

 reliable records of this domestic commerce are kept the value of these 

 shipments is not available. 



But the 31,300,000 long tons of shipments in foreign commerce in 

 1959 had a value of $1,045 milhon, of which $565,800,000 represented 

 exports, and $472,200,000 imports. 



Chicago ranked second to New York in total waterborne tonnage, 

 and in tonnage the shipments at Duluth-Superior exceeded those of 

 anj^ Pacific or gulf coast port although unlike those ports the Lake 

 Superior cities are frozen in for many weeks each winter. 



The U.S. Coast Guard maintains one of its five icebreakers on the 

 Great Lakes to assist commerce, with Cleveland, Ohio, its Ninth 

 District headquarters. 



The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, beset by the mounting 

 problem of maintaining food resources in Great Lakes waters, has a 

 laboratory at Ann Arbor, Mich. 



The Weather Bureau has long puzzled over disturbances in the 

 Great Lakes which cause sudden fluctuations in water levels. 



Geologists are interested in the rock structure which is intensely 

 deformed, presumably by pressure of enormous ice sheets, as well as 

 in the minerals along lake shores. 



Lake Superior, the world's largest fresh water lake, has a depth 

 of 1,333 feet, almost identical with that of the Baltic Sea, and 600 

 feet deeper than Hudson Bay. 



Lakes Huron and Michigan, which rank in area fourth and fifth 

 among the world's fresh water lakes, are 750 and 923 feet deep, 

 respectively. Lake Ontario, 13th in size among fresh water lakes, 

 is 778 feet deep. 



Bodies of water of importance to industry, commerce, agriculture, 

 cUmate, and resources are important also to science. Yet, as in 

 the oceans, scientific research in the Great Lakes has lagged. 



"To date there has been relatively httle basic research performed 

 in these huge bodies of water," Dr. Francesco B. Trama, of Rutgers 

 University, has written the committee. 



This I know because I have been a research associate on the 

 summer staff of the Great Lakes Research Institute for the 

 past 4 years. 



At the present time I am desperately seeking financial 

 support for a very basic study of the primary productivity of 

 the Great Lakes. The National Science Foundation was 

 unable to support this research, not because it was unsound, 

 but because their funds are limited and apparently distribu- 

 uted with respect to field of study and the geographic location 

 of the study and institutions. 



Your proposal to create a Division of Marine Sciences 

 within the National Science Foundation and to include six 

 scientists on the committee, is in my opinion, most intelligent 

 and shows foresight. 



