144 



ploratlon Into the economy of the high seas is and always must be a 

 decidedly expensive undertaking. 



Because of the unavoidable exoense, only one of the several 

 educational institutions in North America that include work in Ocean- 

 ography as a recognized item in their permanent research programs re- 

 gularly/ maintains and operates its own oceanographic research vessel: 

 we refer to the Scripps Institution. Lacking their own boats for re- 

 search, or, if the:^^ possess boats, lacking the m.eans to operate them 

 continuously, all the oceanogrsphic investigations that have of late 

 been undertaken independently by other educational institutions in 

 Am^erica have necessarily been more or less isolated pro.iects. This 

 applies, for instance, to the expeditions recently sent out by the 

 New York Zoological Society and by the Museum of Comparative Zoology; 

 likewise to the present oceanographic program of the Carnegie Instit- , 

 ution, so far as the sea work of the "Carnegie" is concerned(elocv;iiorc, 



To enable any of these institutions, or others like them, to 

 carry on continuous programs of exploration at sea, without govern- 

 ment assistance, special funds for the purpose would be needed, and 

 corresponding additions to their scientific staffs. Lacking these, 

 they must either confine their research activities to parts of the 

 sea so close at hand that small boats will answer, or they must be 

 content with occasional projects further afield, that can be financed 

 privatel^,^, unless they are oble to arrange some scheme of cooperation 

 with one of the several federal or dominion establishments whose 

 duties include marine investigations of one sort or another. 



At present the advance of Oceanography in America is so largely 

 dependent on cooperation of this last kind that our report includes 

 a special chapter devoted to tbe -nosslbilities now open in this field. 



Although such cooperation, notably that between the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology and the United States Bureau of Fisheries, and 

 betvi/een Canadian Universities and the Biological Bofird of Canada, 

 has often proved highly productive, it has two serious limitations. 

 First, as the Federal Government of the two countries are organized, 

 continuity of effort over long periods, such as is required in many 

 ocean investigations, cannot be assured. Second, the stress that all 

 the governmental bureaux must lay on qu.estions of direct economic 

 importance makes it difficult for them to contribute materially to 

 projects whose practical bearing seems remote, though it be agreed 

 that their eventual significance may be great even if measured by 

 dollars and cents. 



As a practical proposition, the fact that only one of the mar- 

 ine laboratories in the United States, or in Canada, that are inde- 

 pendent of the Federal Governments, is at present in a position to 

 carry out periodic cruises in the open ocean in its offing, serious- 

 ly limits the convenient headquarters for oceanic research off the 

 North /jnerican const. And while the laboratories of the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries and of the Biological Bosrd of Canada are 

 better off in this respect, the insistence tbat they must unavoidab- 

 ly lay on fisheries problems limits their freedom of scientific act- 

 ion when it comep to laying ou.t the station programs. In short, the 

 general conditions of the government services, tg outlined else- 



