j: The Oceanography of Tomorrow 



IT was the stratospheric balloon which first of all made possible the 

 study of cosmic rays at a great altitude. The progress of automatic 

 apparatus, however, in particular those in the electronic sphere, is 

 such today that sounding-balloons replace direct observations in the 

 high atmosphere. 



Some realms of observation of which we have spoken are, however, 

 reserved to the manned balloon, especially when it is a question of 

 astronomical observations where an instrument must be pointed 

 towards a heavenly body. 



We note the same evolution in connection with the observation of 

 great depths. Cameras, automatically operated, are sent down which 

 take, at random, thousands of photographs in the course of a single 

 dive. The waste of film is enormous, but if, all things considered, one 

 photograph in a thousand is usable, it costs less than if one had taken 

 it in a bathyscaphe. 



There is also submarine television : the observer, installed in a boat, 

 then follows upon an electronic screen the scenes which the apparatus, 

 suspended to a cable, transmits from the bottom : when an interesting 

 scene appears, the simple release of a catch, worked on the boat, is 

 enough to set the cine-camera going. 



The realm to be studied is so vast and so thrilling that these instru- 

 ments promise us a fascinating harvest. But no automaton will replace 

 the bathyscaphe when it is important to study carefully a particular 

 object. It alone can move about in such a way as to photograph what- 

 ever the navigator may have discovered from the best angle and in the 

 most favourable conditions. 



There is also a group of observations which completely escapes the 

 photographic eye ; that is the study of the faint lights produced by the 

 phosphorescent animals and vegetation. Astronomers well know that 

 the heavenly bodies producing the least light are visible only to the 

 camera and then only during very long exposures of the film. Very 

 often the photographic telescope must follow a region of the sky for 

 hours, and even for nights, for the feeble light rays from a distant star 

 to be added together upon the photographic plate. Our retina, on the 

 contrary, has a short memory : if it adds up luminous impressions, it is 



[ 146] 



