beautiful for its certainty and simplicity. The 

 reference coil was merely put into a water bath 

 along with hot and cold water in the proportions 

 required to balance the galvanometer. A good 

 mercury- in-glass thermometer then indicated the 

 temperature. What an elegant experimental method 

 limited hardly at all as to precision, certainly 

 not by "contact resistance;" 



Why did this prototype also not start a tradi- 

 tion long ago, one leading to routine electrical- 

 wire hydrographic casting? This is a mystery to 

 me. This system was not lacking a vigorous pro- 

 tagonist, Dr. Seimens, a scientist and engineer 

 of great wealth and ingenuity. Moreover, he was 

 a leader in meteorology and hydrography as was 

 Admiral Fitzroy. Further, the "electricians" 

 were at that time quite prominent in natural 

 philosophy and were the ones who first floundered 

 out to sea with machinery to lay cables . Wo 

 doubt there was some missing ingredient. Perhaps 

 something was found to be incompatible with some 

 feature of the sea or maybe it was just poor cable 

 insulation. It is hard to tell because the 

 records of mild successes soon become dim. 



WIDTH AND DEPTH OF INSTRUMENTATION OCEANOGRAPHY 



Now I would like to go back to my original 

 comments that inherently instrument-making has 

 a very broad scope and that large forces fre- 

 quently influence it. The origin of the reversing 

 thermometer and its accessories has just been 

 recited; this was to illustrate how many were the 

 leading scientists of 100 years ago who entered 

 into the evolution of just one single oceano- 

 graphic instrument. It was pointed out also how 

 many were the factors that entered during that 

 period; commercial, philosophical, even emotional. 



Now, perhaps more than in the past, large 

 social forces are at work that are likely to 

 exert their influence on the present day instru- 

 ment man. Today many people are frantically 

 "tying together" the continents in quite another 

 sense. This time they are not content with 

 sending back and forth mere telegraphic informa- 

 tion. They appear to be preparing for the pos- 

 sible exchange of large and destructive packages 

 while others are seeking ways of hiding from 

 these. Except for a new element of fear the 

 driving forces are not now too different from 

 those that influenced the "electricians" on the 

 GREAT EASTERN and the explorers (later to be 

 called oceanographers ) on the CHALLENGER. 



Strangely, war thoughts are not much in evi- 

 dence in the history of the CHALLENGER expedition 

 though likely these too might have passed through 

 official heads since H.M.S. CH ALLE NGER was a 

 naval vessel; a three masted, screw driven, steam 

 corvette of about 2,000 tons displacement and 

 i+OO horsepower. The most important similarity 

 between then and now is the way in which great 

 masses of people were excited by accomplishments 

 depending upon technical skills and on new 



instruments. As a result and because of this 

 excitement financial sponsorship and promotion 

 was easy, just as it is now. 



The Present 



I am not going to dwell long on the present 

 day circumstances since this is the duty of the 

 other speakers at this Symposium. Since 1872, 

 however, much technical ground has been covered 

 and we probably share in the awareness that not 

 enough of this progress has been exploited at sea. 

 That is why we are here today. We find that we 

 must know a great deal more about the sea and 

 again we are somewhat in a hurry with the realiza- 

 tion that our sea-going tools have not been kept 

 up-to-date. This group of professional people 

 contains what are called "specialists" and it is 

 true we have special interest in the problems that 

 come up in the marine world. 



The Reservoir 



It appears to me that we are also characterized 

 and identified by a common concern about ways of 

 joining a very big supply with a very big need. 

 I am tempted to say that I may be somewhat more 

 impressed with the great size, the very formidable 

 dimensions of the reservoir, than with the appli- 

 cation of its contents to merely overcoming detail 

 problems in the marine environment . 



What I mean is that most of us are in this 

 field because we like it and with relative ease 

 and some little enjoyment we can put instruments 

 together. However, our association with our 

 sources of supply is one truly in the nature of a 

 "discipline." It requires effort. It requires 

 skill and patience. There are disappointing 

 experiences and annoyances involved with bringing 

 the products (and also the useful data) of other 

 people into a position where an instrument, say 

 oceanic transducer, can be made. If there is any 

 outstanding difficulty in building research 

 instruments it is in gaining thorough knowledge 

 of what is available. I mean this very broadly. 

 If there is such a thing as an "instrument man" 

 (and this term is often heard now) he might best 

 be recognized by his general skill in locating 

 information widely scattered over the world and 

 deeply buried in obscure records. I believe it 

 is short-sighted to expect the instrument man to 

 limit his attention merely to other instruments 

 unless, of course, we carefully define these as 

 "any tools man uses on earth, or ever has used." 



Boundaries 



Now this requires ranging over a large techni- 

 cal area. Boundaries will be encountered but I 

 believe that crossing these boundaries is part of 

 the professional skill required. Many things 

 must flow across these boundaries—material, equip- 

 ment, financial support and just plain data. None 



