Al)i)li(ati()iis in Vcdcc (ind War 



13 



considerable increase in yield is practicable. 

 The total production of seaweed could 

 probably be increased to at least twenty 

 million tons annually, an amount equal to 

 the present world fish catch. New uses in 

 the textile, paper, and food industries and 

 in agriculture arc constantly being found 

 for the organic components of seaweed. One 

 promising future development is the use 

 of these substances as food for veasts and 

 other protein-making micro-organisms. 



The water itself in the ocean constitutes 

 a resource of actual and potential import- 

 ance. Sea water is now commonly used for 

 cooling purposes in industrial plants near 

 the shore. In many semi-arid regions the 

 water supply from groimd and river waters 

 is becoming insufficient for human require- 

 ments. Serious study is being given to the 

 possibility of obtaining additional supplies 

 of fresh water directly from the ocean by 

 distillation, as has been done in certain oil 

 communities on the West coast of South 

 America, and by other means. 



FISHERIES PROBLEMS 



Organic products from the ocean today 

 constitute the principal marine resource 

 utilized by man. The annual yield of the 

 world's fisheries is some 20 million tons, 

 corresponding to about 1 million tons of 

 protein, or only about one-fiftieth of the 

 total protein consumption. Yet more than 

 half the world's population has a diet 

 which is seriously deficient in protein. This 

 deficiency will become more serious if the 

 population continues to increase at the pres- 

 ent rate. Therefore all possible means must 

 be sought to increase the yield of the sea 

 fisheries, particularly of the deep sea, and 

 to educate people to eat more fish. 



Fishermen are conservative and continue 

 to use the same techniques year after year, 

 chiefly because the economics of the in- 

 dustry does not encourage search for better 

 fishing grounds, new fisheries, or improved 

 methods of catching fish. Nevertheless, 

 new resources have been developed in 

 recent years even in such a thoroughly 

 fished region as off the New England coast, 

 and with little change in boats or gear. 



Within ten vears, the fishery for rose fish 

 grew from negligible proportions to yield 

 in 1941 some 145 million pounds, and is 

 now the second most important fishery of 

 the coast. 



Within the past few years, it has been 

 found that the fish populations beyond the 

 continental shelves are far greater than 

 previously supposed. Many of these fish 

 are small and do not school, so that radically 

 new techniques of location, capture, pro- 

 cessing, and marketing must be developed 

 before this resource can be exploited. The 

 development of underwater acoustics af- 

 fords a means for locating fish. With further 

 improvements in instrumentation, acoustic 

 techniques shoidd make it possible to ex- 

 plore the depths of the sea for all sorts of 

 organisms and to estimate their size and 

 number. Already the detection by acoustic 

 means of a deep "scattering layer," pre- 

 sumably a dense population of planktonic 

 animals or fish feeding on them, has sug- 

 gested that at intermediate depths fish are 

 as abundant as at the surface or on the 

 bottom, where most commercial fishing 

 now takes place. New nets for fishing at 

 mid-depths must be devised, however, to 

 explore this potential fishery. Acoustic 

 studies likewise have shown that many 

 fish, Crustacea, and whales all make noises. 

 Fish have, in their lateral line organs, re- 

 ceptors attuned to low frequency vibra- 

 tions, which presumably serve some pur- 

 pose in their activities. This suggests the 

 possibility of using sound to lure fishes into 

 traps or to herd them into nets. 



Comparatively little effort has been di- 

 rected toward the aspects of fisheries re- 

 search just described; rather the goal of 

 most fisheries work has been to predict the 

 quantity and quality of fish that can be 

 caught under specified circumstances. The 

 work is so diversified that it covers all 

 phases of oceanography. Fishery biologists 

 must concern themselves on the one hand 

 with marine environments, i.e., with cur- 

 rents, nutrients, winds, temperatures, etc., 

 and on the other, with the economics and 

 analysis of catch statistics, as well as with 

 interrelated biological problems. Natural 



