Preface 



The International Oceanographic Congress was a great day for 

 oceanography. Some of us who attended it had been scientific 

 sailors since we were very young. We could not have imagined in 

 those days that we would meet one day in a great assembly with 

 representatives from two thirds of all the earth's nations. 



It was fitting that the Congress should be held in the home of 

 the United Nations, for the marine sciences are peculiarly inter- 

 national. Not only can scientists of every continent and every 

 country contribute to knowledge of the seas, but it is also necessary 

 that they do so if our understanding is to increase. 



From another point of view also, it was appropriate that those 

 who are concerned with learning about the oceans, which are the 

 property of no man and no nation but the heritage of every man 

 and every nation, should meet in a building that belongs to no 

 nation but to all mankind. By the ironies of science in our terrible 

 century, the very existence of our human species is threatened 

 while at the same time populations everywhere are exploding in 

 size. No one knows how to predict or control what will happen to 

 human society. We do know we must learn to govern our planet, 

 to accept rationally and use wisely the planetary home in which 

 all men are imprisoned. A first step in planetary government might 

 well be the development of a wise and far-seeing international 

 government of the oceans. But such governments depend on 

 understanding. Oceanographers have a grave responsibility to the 

 United Nations to achieve the understanding on which an inter- 

 national government of the oceans can be based. 



Just as the United Nations is the meeting place for all the 

 nations, the science of the sea is a meeting place for all the sciences. 

 There are several definitions of oceanography, or oceanology, as 

 many of my friends prefer to call it. Some say it is not a science 

 at all, others that oceanography is what oceanographers do, or 

 simply the science that is done at sea. I have had some success in 



