46 MARINE SCIENCE 
activities of man as well as modifications in ocean climate is more hypothetical 
than based on serious research findings. ; 
With these things in mind, the California sardine industry in the late 1940’s 
instigated the establishment of a coordinated ocean research program in the 
California Current area with a view to elucidating the physical, chemical, and 
biological processes which led to variations in the abundance and availability 
of sardine in that area. It secured the cooperation of a working committee of 
scientists from the several research agencies involved. It secured the passage 
of legislation which established a marine research committee in the State govern- 
ment and provided it with a $1 per ton new catch tax to spend on the research. 
It secured the establishment in the University of California budget of an item 
to found a marine life research project at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. 
It secured the cooperation of the sardine investigations of the Department of the 
Interior, and of the State department of fish and game. It enlisted the sup- 
port of the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University and the California 
Academy of Sciences. 
In this way and beginning actively at sea about in 1948, the marine research 
committee (an official State body appointed by the Governor), aided and abetted 
by an advisory committee of scientists called the California Cooperative Fisheries 
Investigation Committee (CALCOFI), which had no formal or legal status, began 
the investigation of the ocean within about 500 to 1,000 miles of California with a 
view to finding out what was happening to the sardine and why. These two 
groups had from $1 million to $1,250,000 per year to spend for this purpose. 
After the passage of 12 years and the expenditure of about $15 million on 
well-planned, highly integrated, comprehensive research in this rather small piece 
of ocean, one may say without fear of contradiction that, with the possible excep- 
tion of the North Sea where competent general ocean research has been going 
on for more than three times as long, no segment of the world ocean is as well 
known or as well understood as is the California Current. 
Yet, with the close of the 1950’s and nearly 12 years of intensive research, 
both the marine research committee and its related CALCOFI committee found 
themselves dissatisfied with their work, its organization, its scale of funding, 
and its results Despite the admittedly great results in understanding that 
had been achieved, it seemed as if they were only a springboard or a jumping 
off place for initiating a real investigation of ocean processes so that a real 
understanding of them could be achieved. 
Despite what appears even in these days of big oceanography talk quite a bit 
of money for investigating a small piece of ocean, the steady inflation of costs 
during the decade mean that $1 million would buy only about half as much 
research in 1960 as it did in 1950, and belts had to be tightened all the way 
around The steadily shrinking true value of the research dollar meant that 
increasing quantities of the most valuable sort of data and specimens had to 
be stored away in closets and basements because funds were not available to 
hire scientists to work them up. Thus, perhaps more than half the results of 
$10 million worth of research ship time lay on shelves gathering dust. While 
everything seemed to be fully coordinated and well planned, it was obvious 
that organization, as well as belts, needed to be tightened. 
The marine research committee thus began a thorough and searching in- 
vestigation of itself and its works and came away from this examination less 
than satisfied. Upon the recommendation of its scientific collaborators, it hired 
a top scientist to coordinate it and their work, and it formally established the 
CALCOFI committee to be composed of this coordinator as chairman and the 
head scientist of each of the three principal collaborating laboratories as mem- 
bers. The newly formalized CALCOFI committtee began a complete revaluation 
of the objectives of this program of research dollars, and presented this rather 
radically, newly oriented program to the marine research committee for its 
consideration. 
The MRC examined this new program, found it good, adopted it and allocated 
what funds it had to put it afoot. 
Having done this much by the end of 1960, the marine research committee 
found itself still profoundly uneasy and dissatisfied. It had reason to believe 
its collaborating scientists were as competent a group as any in the world, that 
their accomplishments had been large with respect to moneys that had been 
spent, and that their present program of investigation was well conceived for 
the economic use of the research dollars expended. 
