Excerpt from Hearing Before the Special Subcommittee on Oceanography of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives: Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session, on S. 2482 S. 2483 January 22, 1960

Up until a year or so ago, at least, only about 2 percent of the deep - sea area had been surveyed with any accuracy at all com parable to any maps on land. Part of this 2 percent was the area off the west coast of the United States where the Coast Survey ship Pioneer, using Navy funds and under the direction of the Navy, made a survey of an area of about square miles With sounding lines 5 miles apart. This is the closest grid we have anywhere in the deep sea.

I am sure that everyone concerned would say that the survey by the Coast and Geodetic Survey of this area off the west coast of North America was conducted with the very highest standards of accuracy and precision. It is a most satisfactory job.

The purpose of this bill is to enable the Coast Survey to do a job like this on the request of any head of a Government agency and provide that the funds are appropriated directly by Congress. This is a job which they have demonstrated that they are capable of doing, which they are eager to do, and which, in the opinion of both scientists and the fishing industry needs to be done.

I think that the basic thing that could be said is that in this field of surveys one never need fear the problem of duplication, nor the problem of coordination. The coordination can be done very easily and the duplication is virtually impossible because of the extremely large area of the oceans that needs to be surveyed. If you put every surveying agency of the United States on the job, it would still take a long time to do it.

The great thing about it is that, if the Coast Survey can be brought into the act, systematic surveys of high quality can be planned on a long-term basis, the ships and facilities can be built, and men can be recruited to do this job at a level with the accuracy and precision that is required.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.