developments, or, if we do, we are not used to doing it and do 

 not know how to proceed. 



We value freedonn in our work, including freedom to try things 

 that may not turn out well at all. Hence, we like to do a lot of our 

 own instrumentation. Not all of the laboratories have good instru- 

 mentation sections; those that do, do not have all the good people 

 that they should. This is improving, and, from where I sit, it 

 looks as though we are learning to compete with Industry for 

 talent. 



Because you have become interested in us, we are beginning 

 to learn a lot more than we did about available instrument compon- 

 ents and more and more we are exploring the possibilities of 

 meeting our instrumentation needs by assembling existing parts. 

 You will have to excuse us, though, if we like to assemble our 

 own prototypes. We often do not know enough about what we want 

 to measure in order to write specifications. Often, we cannot 

 wait out delivery delays in order to try out ideas that we suspect 

 may turn out to be worthless. 



One of the things that we like about oceanography is that 

 there is surprisingly little jealousy m the oceanographic community. 

 We in the laboratories compete with one another for the sponsor's 

 dollars all right, but we exchange data, we exchange equipment, 

 and we exchange ideas rather freely. 



If you in Industry have good ideas, you will find the labora- 

 tories ready to help you check them out. If you have gadgets to 

 test, we will take them to sea. All you will usually be asked for 

 is a chance to see the data and the opportunity to buy your success- 

 ful instr undents. 



I think it would probably be useless to try to outline the most 

 pressing instrumentation requirements for physical and chemical 

 oceanography from the point of the institutions. There would be 

 no agreement between any two people on this, and our opinions 

 change rather rapidly. Three of the things, though, about which 

 there is rather general excitement in oceanography are: First, 

 the certainty that in the very near future we are going to get 

 synoptic data from reporting buoys; secondly, the apparent 

 feasibility of instrumenting in-shore areas from towers for 

 making microscale observations of the environment; and finally. 



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