The Committee on Oceanography was organized in 1957 within the 
Division of Earth Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences— 
National Research Council. Its activities have been jointly sponsored 
by the Atomic Energy Commission, the Bureau of Commercial Fish- 
eries, the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Re- 
search. The Committee's objectives are to assist in the development 
of the marine sciences, to encourage basic research and to advise 
the government agencies on various oceanographic problems. 
The map on the front cover is a portion of a chart originally published in Peter 
Goos' De Zee Atlas in 1667. We are grateful to the American Geographic Society 
for loan of the original map and permission to reprint it here. 
