6? 

 Chapter II 



ECONOiaC VALUi OF OCSANOaRAPHIC INVESTIGATIONS 



There is hardly an aspect of Oceanography but affects one or 

 another phase of modern civilization; and naturally soj for this 

 science is concerned with the physical and biological economy of some 

 seventy percent of the earth's surface. 



When Oceanography is considered from the severely practical stand- 

 point of human economics, a distinction must be drawn between the study 

 of such oceanic phenomena as exercise a basic control over the habit- 

 ability of the lands, and of such others as man can turn to his benefit 

 by his own efforts, but which will neither serve nor harm him other- 

 wise. The first category includes the general influence that the 

 oceans exercise on the climates of the continent. The second covers 

 all the ways in which man can draw raw material for his use from the 

 sea; also it covers the knowledge he needs to make the latter a safe 

 high7;ay for his commerce. It is with this second category that we are 

 now concerned. 



Food and safe navigation always hav: been, and now are man's most 

 urgent demands from the sea. The lines of oceanographic study from 

 which the most direct and economic advantages may be hoped are, there- 

 fore, investigations into: (l) the biology of the animals that 

 support the commercial fisheries; (2) the various events in the sea 

 that affect navigation. In fact, it has only been as knowledge has* 

 increased, with the progress of civilization, that greater and greater 

 utilization of the biologic resources of the sea (fisheries) has be- 

 come possible, and that navigation has been made reasonably safe. With 

 th. increasing: press of population all over the habitable globe, the 

 demand for more complete utilization of the fisheries resources of the 

 sea grows more insistent, a dem.and that can only be met by a more 

 complete understanding of the pertinent phases of Oceanography. With- 

 out this our efforts must be hit-or-miss, as so many fisheries under- 

 takings have been in the past. Investigation as to whether the rela- 

 tionship that the temperature of the sea water and its circulation 

 bears to the temperature, pressure and circul-jtion of the overlying 

 air, can be made to afford a basis for long-range forecasts of 

 climatic variations, is also an economic proolem. 



A partial list of other subjects less promising of immediate 

 commercial advantage, but which may eventually lead to useful develop- 

 ments, includes: (l) study of the characteristics of coastwise 

 currents, as affecting harbor construction, etc. along sandy shores; 

 and (2) more detailed explor?tion of the contour of the bottom to make 

 easier and cheaper the construction of submarine cables, and (3) the 

 possibility of profitably extracting from the total sea salt, that 

 has so long been an important object of commerce, or from sea water, 

 direct, the many other substances that it contains beside sodium 

 chloride, 



I. THE SEA FISHERIES 



Much has been written of late about the total productivity of the 

 sea, and the fact that this may be greater (per unit of area) than 

 that of the land has been emphasized repeatedly. Under present 



