110 MARINE SCIENCE 
sults and save a large number of man-hours and production time. 
Perhaps we should view oceanographic instruments in another per- 
spective to better understand their true value and function. /As you 
well know, modern instruments are often very expensive. Statements 
made as little as 2 years ago are much too low for many items. De- 
sign changes and new concepts both tend to increase costs. True, 
costs are increasing but fortunately fishery is increasing at a much 
faster rate. Just what do we mean by this? Suppose, for exam- 
ple, it takes 10 men’s time to build a given instrument, but this in- 
strument can do as a measuring instrument what it may well take 
100 men to do. Lack of available manpower for an available ex- 
panding oceanographic program is one of our greatest problems. 
We can best support this manpower and the development of future 
leaders by giving them the best possible instruments. 
A healthy and fundamentally sound oceanographic survey pro- 
gram will, by and large, come to depend upon the research laboratories 
and research instrument development facilities for prototype develop- 
ment of potential survey instruments. 
Oceanographic research laboratories closely integrated with re- 
search support facilities tend to maintain a reservoir of information 
relating to techniques and methods useful in subsurface research. 
This fund of information is constantly increasing and should be 
readily available to outside organizations who have an obvious need 
to know. At present there is no officially recognized organization to 
whom outside organizations can turn what they feel the need of ob- 
taining information on subsurface instrument techniques. Properly 
planned and implemented portions of the research support facilities 
could well serve this most important and critically needed function, 
which certainly has a direct bearing on national defense capability. 
That there is a need to know on the part of outside organizations is 
is apparent from the experience of at least two of the major oceano- 
graphic institutions, namely, Woods Hole and the Scripps Institu- 
tion of Oceanography. In my own case, for a period now somewhat 
over 2 years, there has been an average of better than one personal 
contact per day seeking information. At the same time there have 
been an average of more than two long-distance telephone calls per 
day for the same purpose. 
Oceanographic instrumentation in the modern sense may be con- 
sidered as just getting underway. It is urgently recommended that 
the coordinating agency for oceanographic research consider at the 
earliest possible moment establishing certain desirable standards re- 
lating to telemetering and oceanographic data acquisition patterned 
along those presently in effect established by IRIG (instrument range 
instrument group) for use in aircraft and missile flight test and re- 
search programs. At present it is feasible to use certain portions of 
the IRIG recommendations in the oceanographic telemetering field. 
However, it is felt that the field is sufficiently large and unique, pre- 
senting special problems, as to justify the development of suitable 
standards which are more universally applicable. It is not consid- 
ered that such standards would in any wise be restrictive, but rather 
would operate as the IRIG standards did in actually facilitating 
and improving the entire flight test and missile instrumentation pro- 
grams. In fact, if we are to operate extensive survey programs, it 1s 
