FRONTIERS IN OCEANIC RESEARCH 23 



The success of the Mediterranean operations prompted the outright 

 purchase of the craft by the U.S. Navy. Since its purchase the 

 bathyscaph has provided an effective research platform for operations 

 out of San Diego and Guam. 



The craft alone was a skeleton, and had no scientific instruments, 

 and these have been under development at the laboratory and by other 

 institutions. As you might well realize to provide instruments that 

 can withstand the tremendous pressures of the great depths is not an 

 easy one. Pressure at the bottom of the Challenger Deep amounts 

 to 8 tons per square inch. 



Unfortunately we could not go out and buy the instruments we de- 

 sired "off the shelf," so to speak. 



In the record I would like to include the entire presentation, but 

 just to give you some idea of the versatility of the bathyscaph, and 

 what will be required of other deep submersibles for man's research 

 in the oceans, they have to include the studies of submarine geology, 

 physical oceanography, biological oceanography, and acoustic proj- 

 ects, as brought out by Dr. Brown. At the present time acoustics is the 

 equivalent of our eyes under water, and the only way we can view 

 great distances. 



The capabilities of the bathyscaph are somewhat limited. It is 

 primarily an elevator. It is built to go up and down. Its mission 

 was to make the deep sea available, even if only on a limited basis. 



Carrying oceanographers and scientific equipment, the bathyscaph 

 can descend to any depth in the sea and provide an in situ base of 

 operations ; that is one in the environment, and to provide an oppor- 

 tunity for visual observations and measurements. 



I think it would be easy to understand that if you are going into 

 a new environment, the first thing you want to do is look at the 

 environment and see what is going on there. It is difficult to make 

 instruments to measure certain phenomenon, while others are going 

 on of which we know nothing or relatively little. 



One of the primary attributes of the bathyscaph, the observation 

 window, which, supplemented with external illumination, extends the 

 capabilities of the bathyscaph to the best known servomechanism— 

 man himself. 



It also offers a new feature for oceanographic research, in that it 

 vitiates the need for operating equipment such as samplers hung at 

 the end of extremely long cables lowered into the abyss. 



This classical groping method is clearly analogous to the student 

 of conditions prevailing in the barren deserts of the great Southwest 

 when he uses an airplane flying, say, at 35,000 feet at midnight. Low- 

 ering a cable to the desert floor with a grab device on it, he hopes to 

 pick up a piece of a lizard's tail, a creosote bush, sands, and rock. 

 From this meager tidbit, the scientist then is expected to interpret 

 what the desert floor looks like and some of the dynamic happenings 

 that are occurring there at the time he flew over that area. 



Dives with the Trieste have given us some insight into the quantity, 

 size, distribution, and behavior of animals at all depths. 



There, without exception, animals have been viewed on each and 

 every dive made with the Trieste. 



When they reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep they were 

 pleasantly surprised to find a fish swiming around just outside of 



