MARINE SCIENCE 75 



Institute of Goteborg, Sweden, trained physicist, now working iiiiiiiily 

 in geochemistry and tlie 5i})plication to oceanograpliic pi-ohlems. 



The rapid development of oceanograi)hic institutions fhiiing the 

 hist 20 years seems to be only the begiiming of an inevitable and nec- 

 essary scientific evolution. This growth has been accelerated by the 

 increasing demands of the Navy, the Atomic Energy ( •onnnission, 

 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, and other agencies concerned with 

 problems of the sea. Oceanograpliic research is rather expensive 

 mostly because of the high construction, maintenance, and operational 

 costs of research vessels, with the additional, relatively moderate, cost 

 of the scientific crew^ necessary to evaluate the collected data. Uni- 

 versities were not able to absorb the high costs in their budgets 

 and therefore contributions for the support had to be given by the 

 above agencies. The stabilization of this support, the construction 

 of an appi'opriate fleet of research vessels with supporting shore fa- 

 cilities, is a necessity which the United States cannot neglect if it 

 hopes to — 



1. permit the education of needed manpower ; 

 '2. achieve the level of knowledge required by the interested 

 agencies ; 



3. maintain its leading position in scientific research of the 

 seven seas. 



Oceanograph}- is a science which describes and attempts to under- 

 stand the processes in the ocean. The descriptive phase is still in 

 progress. Very large areas of the oceans are known only fragmen- 

 tarily. In order to demonstrate the present state of affairs, let us 

 take a chart of one of the better known ocean areas in the northeast 

 Pacific Ocean and plot all expedition routes in this area. When we 

 then take a chart of the United States and cover it by the same pattern 

 of expedition routes, we can easily see that we would miss large geo- 

 graphic features such as the Grand Canyon and the Ozarks. 



Another example will make it similarly clear how far behind our 

 knowledge is, when we compare the density of all permanent weather 

 stations in the I'nited States which take observations four times daily 

 with the network of only occasionally occupied stations in the north- 

 east Pacific. 



Perhaps it may be pointed out that our dense tralMc on land and in 

 air requires an intense knowledge of this environment and for that 

 reason we have better coverage than of the sea. But, on the other 

 hand a glimpse at a standard chart of the stars visible to the naked 

 eye will reveal that we have named and charted more of these features 

 than of sea mounts in the ocean. Here, I think all will agree that for 

 immediate practical purposes, it is more important to know the ocean 

 than the distribution of stars. However, that should not detract from 

 our interest in stars. I mention this point only as an example of our 

 limited knowledge of the ocean. 



Moreover, the density of observations in our standard area is still 

 smallei- than the sliip's-track network covered by the expeditions : be- 

 cause, these could only concentrate on one or a few scientific objectives 

 within the time limits of an expedition. Tlie specific reasons for this 

 limitation are that the research vessels are generally too small in size 

 or tliat the expedition was too short of available manpower. 



55401—60- 



