158 MARINE SCIENCE 
At Oregon State University, we have been especially fortunate to receive as- 
sistance from both the U.S. Navy, through the Office of Naval Research, and the 
National Science Foundation, for construction and equipment of a small, sea- 
going vessel, the RV Acona. (Its 154 tons make it about one-thirtieth the size of 
modern Russian research ships.) We have just begun sea trials on this vessel, 
so cannot report to you on the merits of the special design features we were able 
to incorporate. However, I recall your attention to this vessel because I believe 
the impact is great on the thinking of the people in the Northwest, and that 
many of the students who come to us now, and to our sister institutions of the 
west coast, have been made aware of the importance the Government attaches 
to oceanography by the very fact of support for construction of the vessel. Fur- 
thermore, the Acona is now a new, equipped seagoing laboratory for conjunctive 
training and research. 
With the Acona we are initiating an intensive study of the biological, physical, 
geological, and chemical properties of sea water off the Oregon coast. Unbeliev- 
ably, this work has never been done. If fishermen ask us about currents off- 
shore, or if the Navy requires information on sound transmission and surface 
or subsurface operating conditions, there are almost no data from which intelli- 
gent answers can be framed. It may be hard for many Americans to believe 
that, or at least to understand why, portions of the coast of this country are so 
little known. It is not due to lack of interest or ability of agencies entrusted with 
coastal exploration, but simply to the magnitude of the task. 
Here in the Northwest, weather fit for oceanographic research is rare and until 
we had locally based vessels, adequate surveys had been too dangerous and 
expensive to undertake. 
In these days of nuclear submarines, however, the work cannot end at the 
continental slope. Thorough exploration of all oceans is essential; detailed 
studies of all physical and chemical processes in the sea must be undertaken 
by every means suggested by imagination: an obvious necessity is for the larger, 
more capable ships for all laboratories. 
The Department of Oceanography of the University of Washington has done 
a heroic job in trying to survey an important ocean area several times the size 
of the United States with a small wooden 300-ton, 26-year-old converted Gov- 
ernment vessel. 
The observations must be made at sea but most analysis must be done ashore. 
Laboratories are desperately needed to allow our research men to collate their 
data, to pretest equipment before expensive searuns, to work out their hy- 
potheses and to design their experiments. An oceanographic laboratory must be 
a Surprisingly varied place. It must have sea-water tanks for display of, and 
experimentation with, marine organisms. It needs a large elevator to trans- 
port geological cores, cases of electronic equipment, and even small skiffs used 
as anchored buoys and crammed with sensitive equipment. It needs a machine 
shop, at least one large electronics laboratory, and several wet labs for chemical 
and biological assays. It requires extensive and intensively planned electrical 
power supplies to operate centrifuges, photometric devices, counters, print- 
outs, and pressure chambers. It must have blackboards and light tables and 
above all private offices where a researcher can think without the clatter of 
machines and conversation to distract him. 
Such buildings are not found in every city or even on every university campus; 
they must be specially designed and constructed. 
I have not discussed the many problems of instrumentation, and I hesitate 
to do so since this letter has already become quite long. We are pleased to 
observe growing up around the country a number of oceanographic instrument 
manufacturers, or oceanographic instrument divisions in firms well established 
on other bases. We urge encouragement of this type of endeavor—oceanogra- 
phers have long had to “make do” with poor equipment made on the spot, usually 
by the investigator himself. 
This letter is in no means meant as a criticism of any of the Federal agencies 
who are presently either doing oceanographic research themselves or supporting 
research at private institutions or State laboratories. On the contrary these 
agencies are to be commended on their continued support of the field. The 
Geophysics Branch of the Office of Naval Research and the Earth Sciences 
Branch of the National Science Foundation are to be particularly commended 
on their constant effort to obtain full value from the funds entrusted to them 
to support oceanographic research outside the Federal Government. 
