FRONTIERS EST OCEANIC RESEARCH 51 



What is going to happen to it? I notice the Department of Defense 

 has disposed of surplus or toxic gases, mustard gas, by taking it out 

 and dumping it into the sea. In one instance they loaded a Liberty 

 ship, took her out and sank her. 



Do you feel the sea should be used as the dumping ground for the 

 refuse of the land, and can it have an effect upon the biology of the 

 sea if we continue this, to make it a refuse pile for those things we 

 find on land that we want to dispose of ? 



Dr. Wakelin. I think purely in the field of chemical, as well as 

 atomic waste, that we generally don't know enough about the circu- 

 lation of the oceans and the effect of these materials in their own 

 environment, regardless of where they are being spread, to be able to 

 tell, to be able to decide intelligently, where, if we have to dump 

 them in the oceans, we should do it. 



Mr. Miller. I am happy to have you say that. 



May I call your attention to the fact that the National Geographic 

 magazine, a few months ago, had a story about some French oceanog- 

 raphers who had been hired by the Japanese Government to study 

 some of the upwellings off the Japanese coast to see whether it was 

 safe to dump atomic wastes there, and the answer was no. We don't 

 known where these upwellings are coming on our coasts; we don't 

 know enough about this subject yet, other than there is a wide expanse 

 and this is a cheap place to dump it, take it out to sea and get rid of 

 it ; isn't that the attitude ? 



Dr. Wakelin. And it is far removed from land. Right, 



Mr. Miller. Well, how far can you remove atomic waste from land 

 when you don't know where the currents in the ocean will carry it ? 



Dr. Wakelin. That is correct ; you can't, Until both our static and 

 dynamic studies are much more nearly complete in terms of the cir- 

 culation of various areas, of even the Atlantic Ocean off of our own 

 coast, 



Mr. Miller. In any event, we don't know. Ten years ago we didn't 

 know there was a Cromwell current, did we ? 



Dr. Wakelin. That is correct. That was discovered during the 

 IGY, I believe. 



Mr. Miller. I believe it was the IGY. The Cromwell current is the 

 one Dr. Brown referred to yesterday, but not by name, that runs from 

 west to east, along the equator. 



Dr. Wakelin. Yes. 



Mr. Miller. And is as big as 1,500 Mississippi Rivers, they say. 



Dr. Wakelin. The rate of flow ; that is right. 



Mr. Miller. The rate of flow ? 



Dr. Wakelin. Yes, and this was one of the principal discoveries in 

 the dynamics of the oceans resulting from the IGY. 



The Chairman. The rate of flow of the Mississippi River now down 

 toward the lower part of it is about, as I remember, about one and 

 a half million cubic feet per second, up to 3 million cubic feet per 

 second. 



Mr. Miller. This current I believe is about 1,000 feet below the sur- 

 face of the ocean, maybe not quite that far, and it is nearly 200 miles 

 wide, roughly 200 miles, and 1,500 feet deep. Figure that kind of 

 a river flowing back. 



Dr. Wakelin. Yes. 



