355 



cal and Medical Sciences. Dr. Carlson was for many years our member 

 of the Interagency Committee on Oceanography. 



Then Dr. T. O. Jones, Division Director for Environmental Sci- 

 ences. Dr. Jones has had a long interest in the Antarctic programs and 

 prior to taking on his present assignment was head of our Office of 

 Antarctic Programs, that Office now being a part of the Division of 

 Environmental Sciences. 



Mr. Daniel Hunt on my left is special assistant to the Director for 

 Marine Science Affairs, and helps especially in his work as a member 

 of the Marine Council. 



Mr. Charles Maechling, Jr., finally, is our Deputjr General Counsel. 



Missing today is another key member of our team in marine sciences, 

 Mr. Eobert Abel. Mr. Abel testified before your committee in Septem- 

 ber concerning our new and very important sea grant program. 



I will now proceed with my statement. 



Mr. Lennox. Thank you, Doctor, 



Dr. Robertson. I am pleased to present to you this morning a sum- 

 mary of the Foundation's role in marine sciences. In the intensified 

 national effort to insure effective use of the oceans, the principal role 

 of the National Science Foundation is to mobilize the talents of our 

 academic institutions. These institutions must play a key role in carry- 

 ing out scientific research and in training the scientists, engineers, and 

 technicians needed to do the job. 



The goal of research in oceanography is to gain a better under- 

 standing of the sea and all the objects and phenomena that occur in 

 this portion of our world. Scientific study of the oceans involves many 

 scientific disciplines including the basic sciences of physics, chemistry, 

 and biology. It requires observations, experiments, and collections at 

 sea, and work in shore laboratories. Ocean scientists use instrumenta- 

 tion as simple as a dip net and pail and as complex as arrays of 

 resonnance spectrometers, computers, and fleets of fully instrumented 

 ships. 



Man's exploration of the oceans has hardly begun. Until a few 

 decades ago, the seas were an ill-understood and hostile enviromnent. 

 To get to sea was a major task for the scientist, since ships equipped for 

 scientific research were scarce. Once at sea, scientists were miable to 

 study, observe, or collect with reliability the things that were essential 

 because the proper equipment, instrumentation, and techniques were 

 lacking. 



Many of these problems have largely been overcome. Good ships 

 are available now, instrumentation is improving, and more scientists 

 are eager to study the oceans. People trained for research in the ocean 

 sciences, however, are still in short supply. This makes it imperative 

 for much of the Nation's oceanographic research to be done by univer- 

 sities so that, in addition to its primary objective of gaining an im- 

 proved understanding of the seas, the research work may also serve 

 to train the new generation of oceanographers. 



To place our present programs in marine sciences in proper per- 

 spective, I would like to review very briefly the early history of the 

 Foundation's involvement in this field. Some oceanographic research 

 was supported by the Foundation from its very start, in 1951, with 



