MARINE SCIENCE 181 
contracts. Furthermore we are in a position to train graduate students in the 
skills necessary for this type research. Let me point out that one aircraft prop- 
erly equipped can accomplish in 1 day on one of the Great Lakes what would 
require perhaps a week’s work by several research ships. The savings in money 
and manpower are obvious. 
We are watching the progress of bill 901 with great interest and hope it will 
be approved by the Congress as soon as possible. 
Thank you for keeping me informed. 
Sincerely yours, 
R. A. RAGOTZKIE, 
Assistant Professor. 
COMMUNICATION FRoM Dr. WILLIAM H. McGRratH, ASSISTANT DEAN OF 
STUDENTS, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, CALIF. 
Marcu 16, 1961. 
Senator WARREN G. MAGNUSON, 
Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 
New Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 
DeEAR SENATOR MaGnuson: The following statement is respectfully submitted 
to the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. There exists in the 
United States today numerous yachtsmen who are both affluent and influential 
as well as intelligent and interested in oceanography. 
These businessmen and executives could easily be encouraged toward oceano- 
graphic research by a favorable rider on an oceanographic bill. This rider could 
permit a very modest tax benefit for those skippers who would, for example, 
install aboard their yachts at least $1,500 worth of oceanorgaphic research gear 
and who would actually engage in the solution of a significant oceanographic 
problem. 
The validity of each skipper’s research program could be cleared through 
facilities of existing research institutes. (We all have far more research ideas 
than we can ever work on.) 
The above is based on several important contributions by laymen, an example 
of which is: The most significant oceanographic discovery of the past 100 years 
(the subsurface eastbound equatorial current of the Pacific) was made by the 
boy, Townsend Cromwell, who flunked out of Scripps Institute of Oceanography. 
He noted that “far too much water flowed west and nowhere enough flowed east 
according to all the textbooks. Therefore, there must be a giant eastbound cur- 
rent somewhere.” A few dollars worth of floats and bottles were dropped 
through the well-known well-traveled westbound Pacific Equatorial Current. 
The astounding results showed this current to be very shallow and that the mas- 
sive movement of water was in the opposite direction—west to east. 
Sincerely yours, 
WILLIAM H. McGrRaAtTH. 
(The following information was subsequently submitted for the 
record :) 
U.S. SENATE, 
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY, 
March 22, 1961. 
Hon. WARREN G. MAGNUSON, 
Chairman, Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 
Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 
Dear Mr. CHAIRMAN: You are to be congratulated on the foresight and per- 
severance with which you have promoted legislation to further research in the 
marine sciences. This vast field holds enormous potential for mankind, yet 
it has been largely ignored until your hearings last year and again this year 
opened up to the general public the need to explore the secrets of “inner space,” 
the oceans. 
The primary purpose of 8. 901, as of last year’s bill, is to enhance the na- 
tional economy, security, and welfare by increasing our knowledge of the oceans 
and the Great Lakes in physics, biology, chemistry, and geology of the sea. 
The bill would approximately double the capabilities of the United States in 
this area within the next 10 years. 
