SEA GRANT COLLEGES 85 



of laboratories on the continental shelf where man would be swimming in the 

 waters while subject to ambient pressure, or laboratories in the ocean deeps 

 where it would be necessary to have vehicles protecting them; where you would 

 have work complexes of housing, laboratories, shops, and vehicle garages at 

 any depth in the ocean. It did seem to all of us participating in this study that 

 these things were now technically feasible, and that we had a largely untapped 

 store of scientific and engineering knowledge based on the great variety of tech- 

 nical advances which have been made in so many fields in recent years. More- 

 over, it seemed to us that the time was right not only from a technical stand- 

 point, but also from a standpoint of economic need and other needs. The sinking 

 of the submarine THRESHER brought home to many of us working in this field 

 some of the weaknesses that exist in our capability for working in the ocean. 

 Our inability to recover any major portion of the THRESHER merely illustrates 

 this. 



I must remind you, however, that oceanography is a very young science. 

 As sciences go, it is still in transition from being largely the province of the 

 naturalist- -when we went out on the ocean and made discoveries on every cruise 

 and almost anyone could get a seamount named for his ship or an ocean canyon 

 named for himself. It is only within the last decade that we have moved into the 

 sphere of the experimental and theoretical scientist. For this reason it is clear 

 to me that so far as sea-grant colleges are concerned, we must talk about a well 

 integrated program; not one based simply on the advances that must come in 

 engineering and technology, but a compounded program with continuing research 

 and expansion of the things we are now doing in oceanography. 



This was illustrated to me this part summer in a dive which I made in our 

 little submarine ALVIN during its test program down in the Tongue of the Ocean. 

 We had just completed an unmanned test dive to 7500 feet and the next dive was 

 planned for testing out the equipment in shallow water to see what was still 

 working after the big squeeze. I didn't expect to see much of anything that would 

 be new or different, but much to my surprise, we saw a few things which to me 

 were completely startling. Earlier this morning we heard about the necessity 

 of fishing being transformed from the state of hunting to farming. If we're 

 going to farm the ocean, we must be able to have fences which the fish will re- 

 spect, so that when you sow your crop you can also go back and reap it. And the 

 thing that struck me most forcibly about how well we must integrate our re- 

 search studies with our engineering was that I saw a fence in the ocean on that 

 dive in ALVIN. We didn't expect it --we didn't know about it. 



As we went across the coral sandy reef close to New Providence Island, we 

 crossed what might be considered a barren desert in the ocean; no plants, no 

 fish, no animals, almost nothing of any kind. But suddenly at the edge of the 

 coral reef we came into an area with a great profusion of fish, the likes of which 

 I hadn't imagined existing in the ocean. We cruised along this reef for a couple 

 of hours. Looking out the port window of the submarine, one could see fish in a 

 great profusion of species, just as thick a concentration as you can imagine. Yet 

 just across the width of the submarine --the six foot sphere --out the other win- 

 dow, there wasn't a single fish. For two hours, I observed an invisible fence in 

 the ocean that was as sharp as you could possibly draw it. Only three giant angel 

 fish crossed the boundary, and those only for about the extent of one meter. 



Why was it there? How did nature create such a fence? Is it one we could 

 reproduce to our own convenience? These questions require a lot of good science 

 and studies of behavioral patterns, in biology and physical oceanography, and 

 it's clear we must have such an understanding if technology is to be based upon 

 it. 



I'm happy to be here and do support your idea. Dean Knauss, of the sea- 

 grant college. I believe that it will be necessary that the sea-grant college pro- 

 gram be one of broad integration of many disciplines based both on good research 

 programs and on good engineering programs. 



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