NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 703 
by radioactive materials and other wast-s. While the broad outlines of oceanic 
circulation have been drawn since the Challenger's time, we may still have such 
startling discoveries before us that that of the Cromwell Current, a broad thin 
current flowing beneath the surface in the reverse direction across the Pacific 
toward the Galapagos Islands --- the existance of this current was not demon- 
strated until 1950, and the mechanism that drive it is still not well understood. 
Indeed, there was no provision for such a current in oceanographic theory. 
In methods and types of gear we have advanced beyond the Challenger era -- 
at that time wire cable had just been developed by Lord Kelvin, and was not con- 
sidered reliable enough -- so the Challenger used hemp lines for sounding and 
enormous ropes for dredging. The steam donkey engine has been replaced by 
electric motors. But still the operation takes time -- many hours for a dredge 
haul. Thermometers are better, and all sorts of electronic gadgets to measure 
the chemicals in sea water have been cevised. Most useful of all have been 
the echo sounders and similar devices that not only measure the depth beneath 
the ship but in some cases the thickness of the bottom sediments, producing 
useful geological profiles. Positioning is of course more accurate. But the 
prime instrument in oceanography is the oceanographer, whether he be basically a 
physicist, chemist, biologist or geologist, and the people that help him ashore. 
It has been estimated that for every researcher on ship, there should be ten 
ashore to work on the data. But most of these shore people are the indians of 
oceanography - we need them desperately, but of course most young people who 
want to become oceanographers want to be chiefs. 
Lately we have been trying to decide just what -- or who -- an oceanographer 
is. In these days of IBM cards and record keeping, everything must be classified 
properly. There is a federal register of scientific talent, and all working 
scientists are asked to fill out rather complicated forms for this register. 
Somebody converts these things to little rectangular holes on IBM cards. Recent- 
ly in an attempt to estimate the total number of oceanographers, these cards were 
fed through the machine, and about 5,000 cards fell out. There are nothing like 
5,000 oceanographers, even if we count all the cooks and bottle washers. There 
may be 5,000 people who have something to do with things in, about or from the 
ocean, For example, I do not consider myself an oceanographer, but a marine biolo- 
gist, who happens to specialize in the study of a group of animals found only in 
the sea. But I have become recently involved in trying to promulgate a fool proof 
questionnaire that will produce only the real oceanographers, those who work 
actively with problems in the sea and who go to sea. So our questionnaire asks 
how many months have you been to sea this last year, and what research papers 
have you published about the sea, and so on. I am not qualified to fill out this 
questionnaire -- or at least I have managed to do so in such a way that I probab- 
ly will not be numbered among the salt water oceanographers -- this time my IBM 
card should fall out in the miscellaneous pile at the end. 
There ia a serious aspect to this attempt at classification, since the sup- 
port of oceanography must depend in part on the estimated roster of available 
people. There are probably not more than 350 or at most 500 people in the US 
who really ought to be considered oceanographers. Yet we have plans for adding 
more and more ships to the scientific fleet and some of us are not too sure that 
we are going to have enough oceanographers to man these ships, especially at the 
present rate of recruitment from universities. 
An oceanographer is not only a scientific sailor, he is something of a jack 
of at least several trades. A good many of the senior oceanographers have come 
