4 ADVANCEMENT OF AIARINE SCIENCES 



If done at all the Nation must undertake it as a national progi-am. 



And it must be done. Other nations are engaged in a national 

 oceanographic effort. Great Britain has a national oceanographic 

 program. Canada has a national program. Australia and Japan have 

 national programs. 



But the most massive oceanographic effort of all nations is that of 

 Soviet Russia which is operating more research ships than the entii-e 

 free world, and is operating them in all oceans. Moreover, the 

 So\det scientific ships are larger, better equipped, have more labora- 

 tories, and accommodate more marme scientists than those of any 

 other nation. 



Soviet research ships carry a bronze plaque of Nicolai Lenin with 

 this quotation: "In order to spread world communism, it is necessary 

 to use the fields of science and technicology." 



To spread communism thi-oughout the world, Russia must make 

 use of the oceans, and thus the seas are very important in the Kremlin's 

 scheme of world domination. 



It is the concept of the materialistic philosophy that guides Russia's 

 rulers that scientific leadership is concomitant to world leadership. 



To deny the principal competitor of the free world this leadership 

 is earth's largest laboratory- — the world ocean — is a duty and responsi- 

 bility of the democracy Avhich potentially is most capable of unlocking 

 the ocean's secrets — the United States. 



The United States, even with a national coordinated program, 

 cannot accomplish this mission in 1 year or 2 years or 5 j^ears. 



The ocean is too vast, its mysteries too profound, too complex, and 

 too numerous. 



At least 10 years of vigorous, continued, amply supported, and 

 systematic research will be required in the opinion of the Nation's 

 outstanding oceanographers, who consider the ocean an unparalleled 

 frontier for scientific exploration. Why? 



Ocean waters cover 71 percent of eartih's surface at an average depth 

 of more than 12,400 feet. Land above sea level has an average eleva- 

 tion of 2,747 feet. 



The world ocean contains earth's longest mountain ranges, highest 

 peaks, and deepest canyons yet less than 2 percent of this vast under- 

 water terrain has been charted. 



In contrast, 60 percent of the moon's surface has been photographed 

 and mapped in detail; 100 percent if we accept Soviet clahns. 



On land exposed above the ocean only the surface is inhabited. 



Life in some form exists in the ocean at all levels. 



Life as we know it, plant or animal, in fact could not exist on this 

 planet without the ocean. 



The moistm'e in tlie atmosphere that falls on the land — and lakes — 

 as rain or snow is almost entirely water evaporated from the sea by 

 the energy of the sun. 



Much of tjie energy that drives the winds and carries this moisture 

 across the land originates from this evaporation process which, from 

 the 300 million cubic miles of water in the ocean, draws annually 

 80,000 cubic miles of water later to be released as rain or snow and 

 .still later flow back to the sea. 



Colombus O'D. Iselin, senior oceanographer of the Woods Hole Ocea- 

 Tiographic Institution, Woods Hole, !Mass., likens the interchange be- 

 tween the ocean and the atmosphere to a gj'oat machine, "in many 

 respects similar to a steam engine." 



