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Indonesian archipelago, Japan mines iron from 
its coastal waters, and heavy minerals are taken 
from beaches and near beach areas of the United 
States, Australia, and India. Sulfur is recovered 
from beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Coal has been 
mined from tunnels extending from land to points 
under the seas in Canada and England, and bro- 
mine, magnesium, iodine, and common salt are 
recovered commercially from sea water. 
However, all present marine mining is in rela- 
tively shallow waters less than 400 feet in depth, 
and the equipment employed is generally the con- 
ventional hydraulic or bucket dredge. Normal 
evaporation, chemical precipitation, and ion- 
exchange procedures are applied to the removal of 
compounds and elements from salt water. Thus, 
there is no true deep-sea mining industry today. 
The major deterrent to further extension of 
even the shallow-water mining, to say nothing of 
deep-sea mining, is cost. But there is also lack of a 
clear picture of where and what the resources are. 
The problems of investigation are formidable. At 
present, the industry lacks efficient methods and 
equipment either for prospecting or mining the 
sea bottom, it lacks knowledgeable marine scien- 
tists and engineers, and it lacks incentive since 
present sources are adequate to satisfy present 
markets. 
It has heard the reports of manganese, phos- 
phorus, gold, platinum, tin, and a host of other 
minerals found on the continental shelf or the 
deep sea floor; but looking at the cost-benefit rela- 
tionships, the mining industry is apparently o- 
bliged: to wait until there has been a large-scale, 
long-range comprehensive program of explora- 
tion before venturing very far into this difficult 
region. In the national interest, the initial ex- 
ploration may be the role of government. 
E. Shipping 
In January 1963, the active U.S. Flag Fleet con- 
sisted of 904 ships of 1000 gross tons or over with 
a total capacity of 13,575,000 deadweight tons. It 
included 21 combination passenger cargo ships, 
601 freighters, and 282 tankers. 529 of these were 
employed in foreign trade, one in foreign-to- 
foreign trade, 346 in domestic trade, and 36 in 
other U.S. agency operations. Another 52 were 
temporarily laid up for repairs or awaiting cargo. 
Since the Merchant Marine is subsidized, its pre- 
cise value as a factor in the economy is difficult to 
NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
estimate. However, it provides employment for 
approximately 200,000 people in seafaring, shore 
side, shipbuilding, and repair activities and con- 
tributes more than $5 billion annually to the do- 
mestic economy. It is estimated that it would take 
$10 billion to replace it with new construction. 
The primary reason for subsidization is the stra- 
tegic value of the Merchant Marine to national 
defense. It is indispensable for the emergency 
supply of military field activities, defense manu- 
facturing, and essential civilian needs. 
Although its numbers are slowly decreasing, the 
average tonnage per ship and ship speed are both 
increasing so that there is a slow net improve- 
ment in overall capability. Replacement policies 
and steps toward ship automation are intended to 
further this improvement. 
Two oceanographic activities contribute to more 
efficient operations: ship routing to avoid unfavor- 
able wave conditions, and optimizing ship hull 
designs to meet the specific wave and weather con- 
ditions on routes where they would be used. Both 
these possibilities are in the experimental or de- 
velopment stage but appear promising. 
For example, all Military Sea Transport Service 
ships use forecasts of wave conditions en route 
developed by the Naval Oceanographic Office and 
issued by either the Fleet Weather Facility in Nor- 
folk, Virginia or the comparable facility in Ala- 
meda, California. Based on an extension by Richard 
James (of the Naval Oceanographic Office) of 
basic research conducted at New York University 
by Neumann and Pierson in the 1950's, wave fore- 
casting is estimated by the MSTS to save these 
ships an average of 18 - 20 hours per crossing, 
averaged over both oceans and all seasons. Over 
the year’s total of about 1000 crossings, savings 
amount to about $2 million. 
A similar service is available to commercial in- 
terests through several private forecasting com- 
panies. Most United States shipping companies 
fail to use it, however, exceptions being the States 
Marine Corporation and the Pacific Fruit Com- 
pany, but it is patronized by European shipping 
concerns who do not have such a service at home 
but apparently like what they get here. 
Extensive research on the effects of sea condi- 
tions on ship hulls, carried on for many years by 
the David Taylor Model Basin, the Bureau of 
Ships, Stevens Institute, MIT, and the Maritime 
Administration, has now progressed to the point 
where it appears that ships can be designed spe- 
cifically for weather conditions along specified 
