OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 235 



Mr. Miller. Well, we can. I talked with a man about 10 days ago 

 who just got back from Africa. And he spoke of the lack of protein 

 m the diet of many of the peoples on the shores of Africa who had 

 never learned to fish, with oceans alongside of them with fish that 

 could provide this protein so necessary to their liealth. And he was 

 surprised that over the thousands of years they have been there they 

 have neglected this source. 



Now, this is perhaps one of the places in the world where this can 

 be done. I think that in our present program, we might find out that 

 the fisheries have been overlooked in many parts of the world. 



Dr. Olson. You are not speaking of Liberia, now, are you? 



Mr. MiLLEE. That is one of the countries. 



Dr. Olson. One of my students did some work in Liberia, and he 

 came back with the same story. It was utterly fantastic, that the sea- 

 shores were just teeming with fish and nobody went out to get them. 



Mr. Miller. Doctor, this bill provides for the setting up of a center 

 for calibration and standardization of instruments used in oceanog- 

 raphy. Do you think that is a necessary function that should oe 

 carried out? 



Dr. Olson. I do not think it is an urgent function, but it is certainly 

 a useful one. 



Mr. Miller. Through the efforts of the present committee — I want 

 to pay my compliments to Dr. Wakelin for the leadership and impetus 

 that he has given it, and I am certain if we were always assured we 

 would have a Dr. Wakelin available we would not worry too much — 

 we have established a data center. And I think that this is one of the 

 things that were sadly lacking in the field of oceanography, whereby 

 we can collect and coordinate the data that has been collected by the 

 many agencies that have been functioning in the field. 



Have you any observation you would like to make on that ? 



Dr. Olson. Yes, I believe that seems to be the major featm-e of the 

 bill. Certainly such an agency is desirable. In fact, it would be 

 almost sad not to have such a thing. 



I know what the Japanese have been doing for many years, and 

 the Japanese data I have used for many purposes, because it is so 

 copious. But as soon as a ship comes in with data, that data is sent 

 to a central agency, and the raw data is published immediately. Or 

 rather, they publish it monthly. They assemble all the raw oceano- 

 graphic data. That is the unprocessed data. And there it is. 



So people can find out immediately what sort of work has been 

 done, what sort of data are available, and if they find that they can 

 use it, of course, they are free to do so. 



Now that is one thing that we suffer from very much. We really 

 do not know who has been doing anything. For instance, Texas A. 

 & M. has a very fine oceanographic establishment, and they go out 

 and get data of various sorts, and we do not know exactly what they 

 are getting. We do not know what they are running into. There is 

 a small organization out at Oregon, and they are getting data, but 

 we do not see it, not unless you happen to have a special interest or 

 you come across it by accident. 



Now, I thinli: a centralized agency, as we are describing here, would 

 help tremendously, because I would expect it would put out some sort 

 of a summary of the types of data which have come in and which are 



