be much more conducive to an enhanced concept of productivity than are the 

 multitudinous taxonomic records obtained today. New biochemical techniques 

 must be developed before such analysis is possible. Chromatographic methods, 

 such as Buzzati's, give hope for the ultimate development of such a system of 

 broad analysis. Other collecting methods require similar revisions including 

 phytoplankton, sediment, and salinity collectors. For special detailed investi- 

 gations of variability, microstructure, productivity of specific forms, or distri- 

 bution, present collectors must be altered in the opposite direction, of course, 

 but such detail presently is not required for fundamental advance of our general 

 concept unless the organisms be valuable as tools for following broad processes. 



Collectors are greatly limited in the nature of the data that they can pre- 

 sent. Their information principally is that of standing crop and it is only with 

 difficulty that processes or dynamic states can be revealed by collecting tech- 

 niques. In fact, our glaring deficiency in instrumentation at present is an al- 

 most complete lack of methods of understanding a dynamic state. Tempera- 

 tures, salinities, populations, nutrient concentrations, and transport all are 

 measurements of standing crop of matter or energy. The measurement of the 

 dynamic state, so essential to an understanding of the sea, awaits novel methods 

 of evaluation. 



All samplers, other than collectors, transform the sample into some 

 form by which it can be linked to our senses. In some instruments the sample 

 is not transformed in its basic nature but altered or amplified and directly pre- 

 sented to the sense that originally could have received the unaltered stimuli. 

 Optical instruments commonly fall into this category, as do calipers. Other 

 transforming samplers transform the sample into some other energy form which 

 is presented to the senses in a qualitative or quantitative fashion. An ordinary 

 audio amplifier is an example of the qualitative transforming sampler. Quanti- 

 tative transforming samplers are our common measuring instruments and al- 

 most invariably present their information to our vision, as discussed before. 

 Some measuring instruments present only one measurement for each operation. 

 These are called gages. Some present their information continuously but do not 

 record. These are called meters or indicators. A typical modern measuring 

 instrument produces a permanent record relating two or more wanted parame- 

 ter of which one is frequently time; these are called recorders. Collectors are 

 not alone in providing masses of data and recorders also are prolific. For in- 

 stance, much of what I have said about plankton nets applies to wave recorders. 

 A measuring instrument physically consists of elements for: 



(1) Sensing (sampling) 



(2) Transforming 



(3) Amplifying and sorting 



(4) Presenting 



Certain thermodynamic principles inter-relate characteristics of mate- 

 rials and levels of energy. The sensing element normally is in itself a trans- 

 former utilizing such interrelations as are selected to be specifically affected by 

 the desired factor. These effects frequently are named by the transformation 

 involved, thermo-electric, thermal-expansion, magnetostriction, etc. , however 

 the longer-known relationships of compressibility, elasticity, etc. , are no less 

 transformers. There is invariably an effect of other changing unwanted factors 

 which, if significant, must be introduced as corrections into the system at some 

 point prior to final presentation. 



The important characteristics of the sensing element are that it recover 

 a sample with proper integration or resolution in space and time that is large 

 enough to permit the presentation, yet not so large as to alter the nature, quan- 

 tity, or distribution of the energy or material sampled. Nor should the non- 



