w z z :0 a: u 'J:- 4

COLUMBUS O'DONNELL ISELIN 1904 1971

THROUGH his skillful efforts and foresightedness, the Woods Hole Oceano­ graphic Institution became one of the world's leading places in ocean research, making significant contributions to the knowledge of the seas, the welfare of the nation in peace and war, and to the world at large through international investiga­ tions and free publication of its findings. General Assistant to the Director and Master of the R.V. 'Atlantis' 1930-1932. Physical Oceanographer 1932-1940. Member of the Corporation and Trustee 1936-1971. Director 1930-1940 and 1956-1958. Henry Bryant Bigelow Oceanog­ rapher 1958-1971.

Noel B. McLean COVER BY ·~ Chairman, Board of Trustees Paul M. Fye President and Director Arthur E. Maxwell Provost Bostwick H. Ketchum Associate Director Some Quotes Vol. XVI, No. 2, June 1971

"Man is a land animal and relatively few of us feel at home or in sympathy with the sea. The sea is an obstacle and to be combatted. One remains on it for as short a time as possible. Scientists are no exception. They too get sea-sick and enjoy their firesides."

"The success of any expedition is always proportional to the congeniality of its personnel." (log of the schooner 'Chance')

"Another aspect of oceanography which is attracting considerable interest at present is the circulation and dispersion of inshore waters from the standpoi~t of bo.t~ pollution and their ability to absorb industrial wastes. It is clear that m the VICimty of the major coa tal cities the limit of the capacity of the local waters to absorb ~aste products is being reached and that very little planning or tho~gh t has gone mto the problem. More and more, the engineers and the respons1ble gov~rn m ent ~genci~s are turning to oceanography to find out what is k n ~;v n about the mshore CirculatiOn, and the chemistry and bacteriology of the waters. Memorandum to Dr. A. N. Richards and Dr. Detlev W. Bronk. Sept. 1, 1948.

He wrote extremely well in a fine style in a fi ne hand, on long sheets of paper. That he never learned to spell did not influence his sense of grammar.

THE tributes in this issue of Oceanus show the great love and respect we all shared for Columbus Iselin. He was a man of broad and encyclopedic interests . He cared not only about our Institution and the study of the ocean but also the. whole world. He was a man of very human instincts, with a concern for all mankmd.

EVERY great adventure has had its gFeat Leaders. Columbus O'Donnell I~elin was one of the .giants of oceanography. An era has ended. We have l os~ a fnend and mentor. Smce the early days of Iselin and Bigelow, oceanography m W?ods Hole and indeed in the whole nation has had a fair wind. He will be sorely m1ssed by all who knew and loved him.

WE are pleased that so many of his friends were able to contribute to this issue and only wish that we could share it with him. Paul M. Fye ..

COlUMBUS O'DONNELL ISELIN 25 September 1904- 5 janu ary 1971

2 An Appreciation ...

THE death of Dr. Iselin strikes a special end that young men should see the attrac­ sad note for French oceanographers* be­ tion and th e value of probing the mysteries cause he had been a member of the of the ocean. Fitting indeed is it that he Comite de Perfecti onnement of the lnstitut should be remembered as a "pump­ Oceanographique (Fondati on Albert I er, primer" par excellence, for he had an un­ Prince de Monaco) from 195 1 until, in canny knack of seeing the real nub of a 1966, he was placed on its honorariat list. problem. This writer well remembers t~e He had also been a member of the Comite honour of being invited to take part m d'Honneur du Centre de Recherches et that celebrated cruise of the R.V. 'Atlantis' d'Etudes Oceanographiques of Paris since to the Mediterranean Sea in 1948, in order as far back as 1949. Those of us who to help with the enlistment of Royal Navy serve on both these bodies are distressed help regarding port facilities. Much cor­ to Jose such an eminent colleague of respondence in advance with Iselin led to worldwide fame in matters oceano­ the formulation of excellent plans based graphical. upon his penetrating assessment of the most worthwhile problems, and I shall / Compatriots of hi s have written fine never forget his final exhortation:-"Keep articles about him in the past, and there Your Sights High." will be obituary notices from the pens of \ , close colleagues which will do proper Iselin had been so long in the field of justice to his memory. lt would be a great oceanography that memories of him spring pity, however, if oceanographers of other up from the early days of the Woods Ef:ole countries who knew him less intimately, Oceanographic Institution. This wnter and who cannot say nearl y so much about remembers the building (in Copenhagen) him from p er~o n a l experi ence, did not put of that redoubtable research vessel the on record their genuine feelings of admira­ Institution's 'Atlantis,' and has memories tion for such a wonderful person whose of its sailing for home from . Plymou_th great impact upon their Science stemmed under Iselin's captaincy and wtth Dam~! from very much more than professional Merriman and Franz Zorell on board. Six competence. Looking back over Columbus years later, Iselin's presence at the meeting Iselin's personal achievements in the of the International Union of Geodesy and furtherance of oceanography, one realizes Geophysics in Edinburgh aff?rded an that nobody less needs any trumpet blasts opportunity to get to know htm better, of admira~ion. One realizes, too, that in and it was then that one came to appre­ a way which always promoted our great ciate that, to his great Jove of the sea an? liking for him, his was a simple character. its problems, he joined a passion for agn­ We use that adjective as true praise to culture. In later years one had the joy convey that he was not complicated in his of staying with him as a house guest on thinking and in the expression of his his farm on Martha's Vineyard, and of views. With him there was never any seeing his herd of cows in which he took question of "not seeing the wood for the such pride. That pleasant visit amply trees." He always knew where he was revealed what a down-to-earth practical going, what ought to be done, and to what man Iselin was as he busied himself with he could best apply his own endeavours all manner of chores - land clearing and and great gifts. It was because he saw the wood cutting amongst them. immensity of jobs to be done that he became a great inspirer of others to the Born on 25 September 1904 in New Rochelle, N.Y., Columbus grew up in a family circle adequately endowed with this *This appreciation was prepared first for Cahiers world's goods and with an avocation for d'Oceanographie, Pari s. sailing. A great uncle had been four times

3 a defender of the Ameri ca's cup and his made from the 'Chance' of the move­ father was also devoted to sailing. At the ments of icebergs confirmed Norwegian young age of eleven lselin built his first theoretical equati ons so thoroughly that boat which (because it leaked) was call ed the American ships of the Ice Patrol forth­ 'The Sponge.' This he was able to do with adopted the theoretica l estimation of because he had learnt from the family current to predict the movements of ice­ carpenter how to use tools. E ntering bergs. lt was the application of these Harvard in 1922 with concentration on Norwegian theories to consideration of the mathematics at first, Columbus soon ca l}1 e G ulf Stream which led Iselin to put for­ under the influence of that great man ward hi s ideas that the influence of the Professor Henry Bigelow whose name is Gulf Stream would be felt less far towards so closely intertwined with everything to E urope at times when its fl ow in its region do with the Woods Hole Oceanographic of origin was briskest - and vice versa. Institution, and it was not long before he This writer well remembers the impact of had turned to oceanography as hi s main his Nature paper of 1938 on that topic interest. The story of how he ordered th e because it appeared at a time when some 72 foot schooner 'Chance' to be built in European oceanographers were much con­ Nova Scotia, and of how he set off in her cerned with the flu ctu atio ns of Atlantic with a crew of college students on his first influence in the waters off NW. E urope. oceanographic trip to the icy coastal Iselin's remarkabl e additions to knowl­ waters of Labrador has been many times edge of the G ul f Stream are embodied in told. That was the beginning of a career a series of papers which have become which shines with high achievement in cl assical and are well known . What he fathoming the mysteries of th e ocean. did in the realm of military oceanography Iselin's colourful life and his great accom­ was indeed massive and earned him much plishments in his chosen fi eld have been honour in his own country which con­ well recorded in print as in the pages of fe rred signal distinctions upon him. His the Atlantic Edition of Time Magazine views on fis heries and on coastwise ocean­ (the issue of 6th July 1959). The studies ography redound greatly to his credit-

The farm at Chappaquansett.

4 but it would take much paper to li st his fift h of Janu ary 1971 and realized that writing and to indicate their content even never again wo uld we be in his stimulating briefl y. We remember hi s ex tremely in ter­ presence, we reali zed with a shock that esting views on the possible cause of the another of the great makers of modern 'Thresher' disaster as we remember with oceanography had passed on. admiration many another presentation of hi s views to impo rta nt events. We of the French Instjtute record our thanks to Iselin for his services on our T his great human personality who was governing body and condole with our bo th an accompli shed sail or and a firs t friends at Woods Hole to whom his death class scientist, who so inspired others, and will be an irreparable loss. who was twice Director of the fa mous Institution which he loved and which J. N. Carruthers Wormley, Surrey loved him, had to his credit a wealth of publicatio ns and a host of offices and honours merely to li st which would be to produce a sizeable booklet. We sha ll leave it to others who were closer to him to li st his professional publicati ons and other scienti­ fi c doings; l who wrote this brief note fo r a F rench oceanogra phical publicati on prefer to use my space to place on record the fact that we are indeed grateful for having known Columbus Iselin who e frui tful li fe was that of a man who added in very great measure wide humani ty , sound practical sense, and high ideals, to the possession . . . one had the ioy of staying on his farm of rem arkable scientific talents. When we on Martha's Vineyard, and of seeing his learnt with sadness of his death on the herd of cows in which he took such pride . . .

5 The Chance and the Risk

CoLUMBUS was kind enough (and I essential material for the performance of was lucky enough) to share the long table oceanographic research be it peacetime in his office during the postwar years. or wartime. There have been many oc­ Until he met Dr. Bigelow while an under­ casions when Columbus piloted 'Risk' graduate at Harvard, Columbus was sup­ across Vineyard Sound in thick fogs with posed to become a banker. Although some aids such as his seaman's eye, his ears to may not agree with me, I believe Columbus pick up the sounds of buoy gongs, his would have been as successful a banker very accurate knowledge of local tides and as he was an oceanographer. I base this currents, plus a stop watch! Columbus belief upon the fact that he dared to also gambled on how to spend research speculate and not just because he hap­ dollars available to the Institution and he pened to own two boats named 'Chance' gambled wisely. Truly, he interpreted the and 'Risk'! "scope of the work" of some of the Navy's Columbus allowed enough explosives to contracts broadly but not without con­ be stored on Nonamessett Island which siderable forethought and weighing pros if detonated accidentally, would hav~ and cons. Mostly, his decisions paid off blown Woods Hole and vicinity off the handsomely with resultant scientific and map. Yet, these explosive charges were engineering break throughs.

The schooner 'Chance' was built for C.O'D. beam of 16 feet, draft of 11 feet six inches by W. C. McKay & Sons, Shelburne, Nova and displaced only 37 tons. Scotia. She was 77 feet on deck, had a /

6 Columbus risked his reputation in se­ scheduling the departures of the fleet but, lecting and supporting members of his above it all, Columbus had the courage to staff, some of whom would never have face risks. "made it" had he been a Director whose hiring policy demanded of candidates the Thanks to Dr. Bigelow's conversion, possession of at least a baccalaureate Wall Street's loss became oceanography's degree. He had to make speculative deci­ gain. I trust other contributors to the sions as to when and where to send the Iselin Issue of Oceanus will emphasize and Institution's vessels to sea. A case in point articulate his many other sterling attri­ was shipping the 'Atlantis' from Woods butes among which were his patience, his Hole to a safer berth in New Orleans forbearance, his unmistakably clear writ­ shortly after the U.S. entry into World ing style, and his gentle but effective War II , when German U-Boats were sink­ power of persuasion. To repeat, I was ing surface vessels right and left up and fortunate to have been his roommate. I down the Atlantic seaboard. His meteoro­ envy those who were his shipmates. logical acumen and his respect for the Francis C. Ryder might of the ocean served him well in Cambridge, Mass.

Summer and winter, in fog, ice and storm he crossed Martha's Vineyard Sound some 8,000 times over a period of more than 30 years.

RISK TAKERS

HERE'S an incident which brings out Columbus' true nature. It was a Friday and due to a cancellation of the commercial ferry our little group of 'Risk' takers bound for a weekend on the Vineyard had been joined by a handful of ferry passengers, among them Kingman Brewster, now president of Yale. When we arrived at our mooring at the head of Tashmoo Pond it was plain that it would take two trips in the large rowboat to get us all ashore. And who loaded the passengers for the first trip ashore and who plied the oars? Columbus, of course, in his usual quiet way had beaten us all to it. . Back on the 'Risk' I said to his long-time friend, John Churchill, who had sailed on the schooner 'Chance': "Columbus is as much at home rowing those people ashore as he is addressing the National Academy of Sciences." "More," replied John. Joseph Chase Woods Hole, Mass.

7 ..

Wonderful Sea Stories •

C oLUMBUS ISELIN and I were closely down East in L ubec, M aine. Its stated associated during the latter part of Worl d objective was: "the study of the ocean and War II , from Janu ary 1943 until the end other fl ui ds." T hese were marvelous week­ in 1945 , and we worked together to build ends, and Columbus' stories were among up Am e ri ~a n oceanography in the post­ their most memorable aspects. war era. Hts enthusias m, imagin ation, and special way of talking about oceanography rn spite of his skill as a raconteur and and oceanographers had an enormous as a scientific salesman, Columbus was a impact, n?t onl y on government officials, modest, shy man, with no discernible but espectall y on the scientific mandarins, egotism and little sense of his own nearl y all of them physicists, who con­ greatness. troll ed the course of American science in R oger R evelle the early 1950's. I don't think he ever Cambridge, Mass. full y beli eved that the Pacific Ocean was as interesting or important as the Atl antic, or that good oceanography could be done in Cali fo rnia as well as in Cape Cod . A FEW weeks ago in Saudi A rabia, of Nevertheless, Woods Hole and Scripps a ll places, someone said to me that he grew pretty much in para ll el, and it turned knew Columbus Iselin, J r. and asked out that whatever was good fo r one in sti­ what kind of a man is his old man. Sadly / tution quickly helped the other. I had to mention the recent death of Columbus, Sr. , but to say what kind of One of the high points of my life was a man he was in the brief time that a trip Columbus and I took together to is all owed for conversation at a party was Flonda, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad in the diffic ul t. I could say only that he was a early spring of 1943, when German sub­ great and kindly man and that it would marines were sinking about one ship a take all night to tell why. day in the Caribbean. We saw a whole series of admirals and told each one of My personal experi ence with D r. Iselin thel!l how _important <;>ceanography could was sli ght, but highly treasured, and as a be tn fi ghtmg submannes. The admirals shipmate rather than a scientist. I was were understandably skeptical, but they fi rst introduced to him by Captain Pike w~ r e so desperate they were willing to in the office. T he great man blushed, ~e t ze on any straw of hope, however frag­ mumbled something, and backed out; it tl e. What I remember particularly, how­ should have been myself who did that! ever, were the long evenings in which Much later we became better acquainted Columbus told me wonderful sea stories when he joined the 'Atl antis II' in Cape­ most of which seemed to center around town in I 963 to come home with us. I a wild friend of his youth named Terry believe that it was his first sea voyage since Keogh. World War ll, or at least, for many years, In the later 1950's and earl y 1960's, we and it also was his last major cruise. were both members of the Committee on At any rate, he didn't come to run the Oceanography of th e Nati onal Academy show, but to observe and comment upon of Sciences, which for several years met our performance. Our work was "water­ about once a month, and in this way we catching" i. e. hydro stations, BT's, wea­ saw a good deal of each other. Every ther obs, echosounding, etc. - simple summer, the Committee would meet at the work yet, A. R . Miller had developed a "Lubec Oceanographic Institute," an im­ team that did these things well and quickly aginary organization established by our and it was nice to get the great man's fellow Committee member, Sumner Pi ke, compliments.

8 H e spent much of his time on the bridge on oceanographic and personal problems, watching the sea and sky , makin g com­ from teenaged girls to senior generals and ments about what he saw, and talki ng with admirals. His outlook on human affairs all wh o came by. At other times hi s cabin was so balanced that everyone had com­ door was usua ll y open to whomever plete confidence in his opinions. Certainly wished to come in , sit and tell stories, or he guided many people in the right paths, listen to him . And in this role I greatly away from the traps and snares. If only admired him. for that, his influence will long be felt. Few exceeded him as a tell er of ta les But it is as a story teller on the bridge (parables?). T he stori es always had a neat and in the cabin of ' Atlantis II' that 1 shall way of summing up some facet of human best remember him. nature or some truth of nature. Robert Munns o/ b R.V. 'Chain' Many people came to him fo r advice Indian Ocean

\ , In 1958, he received the Medal of Merit, highest civilian award of the U.S. govern­ ment. The citation is printed on page 42 of this issue.

I NEVER was a student of Columbus O'D. Iselin; never had I the opportunity to

work with him. Nevertheless throu0ah hi s studies of the circulation of the North Atlantic and, more particularly , of the Gulf Stream system, I used to consider him one of my teachers before we had ever met. More than two decades ago, we met fo r the first time. His habitude was one of. a great man, of a celebrity. ln reality , however, I learned to know in him, in sp1te of h1 s great mental energy and persistent intelli aence, a cordial, almost humble m an. In numerous co 1~n ec ti o n s his advice and g uid ~n ce proved to me l!l.ost sign~fi­ ~ant, n? t only pr~ f ess10 n a lly but also humanl y. He had the rare ab1hty to give m struct10':s, to gu1 de, and to correct mistakes in a way which made the younger ~an to himself, not offended but rather co-equal in a stimulating and encourag­ mg way. There are many of us, in different parts of the world, who will remember Columbus as a dear older brother.

H elsinki, Finl and limo Hela

9 Oh, they were His only frailty, if indeed it be called such, was his concern for and generosity to certain characters who found them­ things of Irish selves in trouble- more often than not, broke or intemperate. One Terence Keogh, beauty ... black-sheep son of Justice Martin J. Keogh of Tammany Hall, was our bosun; one of the best at sea, but with a massive thirst ashore. He could tie Columbus around his little finger. We literally hauled Terry out I FIRST met Columbus in 1931 in Dr. of a jail in Copenhagen in the wee small Bigelow's office in the Museum of Com­ hours just before we sailed, and Columbus parative Zoology. The occasion was to told him he was too valu able to risk ashore "sign me on" as a prospective member of in Plymouth. Confinement to the ship the crew of the 'Atlantis' for her forth­ (mercifully we were anchored off-shore) coming maiden voyage, Copenhagen to was a monstrous torment to Terry, and Plymouth, England, to Boston and Woods each day in port his pleadings to Columbus Hole, Massachusetts. He was four years became more eloquent. Oh, they were older than 1, a horrendous age differential things of Irish beauty and on the next to to me at that youthful stage; perhaps just last day before sailing Columbus capitu­ as well, since 1 immediately regarded my lated to blarney interspersed with word­ future skipper with due respect-respect of-honor promises of sobriety. Several for the "middle-aged," that is. The inter­ hours later a Royal Navy gig stood by to / view was brief. Certainly I had not much inform us that one of our men, Keogh by to commend me: a misfortunate and name, was in the Plymouth gaol. When broken college education, a love of the we inquired as to the charges, it turned water, natural history; and fishing in all out that he had been arrested for ripping its varieties, and limited high seas' experi­ a toilet seat off one of His Majesty's public ence on commercial trawlers on the Banks. conveniences and attempting, as in quoits, At any rate, he took me on-a pig in a to "ring" the Bobby who was directing poke, pushed at him, 1 suspect, by familial traffic at the busiest intersection. ties. lf memory serves, my way was paid Columbus' patience must have been abroad and my salary as an 'Atlantis' strained to the limit, but he never showed "seaman" was handsome, especially since it; his humor saved the day. there was no way to spend it for the 6-7 weeks between ports. Terry's skill My first real look at Columbus, and We were not long at sea when Columbus the one 1 shall always remember, was at got his leg tangled in the main sheet, tack­ Burmeister and Wain, ship-builders, in ing in a stiff North Atlantic breeze. The Copenhagen harbor, mid-June 1931. The burn was fierce, but he bore it with forti­ 'Atlantis' was tied up and we were tude though confined to his cabin for most straightening things on deck prior to a of the rest of the crossing and forced to trial run. Suddenly Columbus and his relinquish command to the 1st Mate. bride of two years, Nora Lapsley, ap­ Fresh off a Cunarder, our new captain was peared above us, deck-side. There was a wholly unaccustomed to sail and much wave of the hand, a reticent but deep­ given to orders, facts which did little to throated "Hello," a sense of pride and endear him to the predominantly Scanda­ excitement which somehow communicated navian crew whose members had already itself to us with no visible outward emo­ become devoted to Columbus; indeed, tion. He was never a Captain in the there might well have been mutiny had it military sense; things just got done without not been for Keogh's tact and nautical orders being given. We were proud of our skill. assignment, he of his; he shed an easy confidence, and if he had any misgivings We landed in Boston in early September about his responsibilities, as well he might and most of the crew scattered. It seems at 26, he never showed them. to me that four of us, Columbus, Chief

10 Trial run of the 'Atlantis.' Columbus Iselin , fi rst captain of the' Atlantis.'

Backus, Knute Niel on, and I took that C harles Wyville Thomson of 'Chall enger' 148-foot ketch from Boston to Woods Hole fa me. T he motif is after the I 04th Psalm , via the Cape Cod Canal alone. Fool­ Evenin g Prayer, Benedic, Anima mea: ha rdy? It didn't seem so then with 24 0 Lord, how manifold are thy Columbus at the wheel. works! in wisdom hast thou made Later, from the viewpoint of a Trustee, them all ; the earth is full of thy I saw Columbus as Director and Senior riches. Scientist of the Institution. My admiration 25 So is the great and wid ~ s~a also; grew as he guided the Institution to a wherein are things creepmg mnum­ ten-fold expansion through the decade of erable, both small and great beasts. the 40's. Now the age-gap di sappeared, but the circumstances never permitted the 26 There go the ships, and there is intimacy of friendship I should have liked. that leviath an, whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein. And finally, there was his gallant ap­ pearance and remini scent speech last The words of the psalter are similarly June 18th on the occasion of the dedica­ apposite to the memory of Columbus tio n o f the new Iselin facility. O'Donnell Iselin . A century apart, both men were giants; they r ep r ~se nt ed two * * * * * areat era of oceanography; either would The central window of the apse of St. have fi tted the other's shoes. Michael's hurch ( 11 38 A.D.) in L in Iith­ gow, not far from the F irth of Forth, is in Daniel Merri man memory of an earli er oceanographer, New Haven, Conn.

ll COLUMBUS ISELIN AND THE MEXICAN BURROS

CoLUMBUS ISELIN was a man of wrong- he said, " I am sure that you are great composure and many strengths. wrong, but go ahead and try to prove it." These traits often cropped up, sometimes T his was typical of him. quite unex pectedly. One such time that was not of much consequence, but which Hilary B. Moore Mia mi, F lo ri da has never been forgotten, has often been related by both remaining participants around the oceanographic circuit. Improved English One late Friday afternoon in Woods Hole, Art Maxwell and I were given a li ft to Boston by Columbus and taken to hi s LIKE many scientists, Columbus Iselin winter home, at Milton, fo r dinner prior to was fasci nated by the Gulf Stream. The catching the midnight train for Was hington. 'Atlantis' sections through the Gulf Stream After we had two generous cocktails Mrs. have set an example for the extremely Iselin joined us and with a few pl eas~ ntri es successful research work at sea, especiall y chose the opportunity, in front of wit­ under difficult current conditions. Iselin's nesses, to advise Columbus that she had in sights obtained by these investigations purchased two Mexican burros for the with the 'Atl antis' are refl ected in hi s children's Christmas. publication: "A study of the circulation of the western North Atlantic." T he three After a seemingly interminable sil ence, names: Iselin, Gulf Stream, and 'Atlantis' / Columbus questioned fl atly , "Nora, where are closely linked together, since he intro­ are they?" duced a new epoch in the exploration of " In the basement," Nora replied with the Gulf Stream. equal lac k of ex pression. " I've had a I am sure there are numerous stories carpenter fix them two nice sta ll s where about the Woods Hole Oceanographic they can stay until we can take them to Institution in the early thirties. One story the Vineyard." that I was told by my late coll eague Dr. With unshaken control, Columbus had F. Zorell may be mentioned at this place. but one further question before we went It tells about seagoing oceanographers: in. to dinner. "But, my God, Nora, what Iselin was chief scientist on the maiden will the police say?" crui se of the 'Atlantis' from Europe to America in 1930, and Zorell was joining I shall always remember Columbus as a guest. He did not know English very Iselin as a man of great composure and well , but this ability improved during the many strengths. cruise as he learned from Iselin and the other crew members. Back on shore Zorell Gordon Lill found that he had to be very careful in Washington, D.C. using his vocabul ary because it was a sai lor slang that he had learned and of no use for a conversation with a lady . Go ahead and prove it GUnther Dietrich Kiel, Germany MY strongest remembrance of Columbus Iselin was the breadth of his interests. In whatever field you were interested he could suggest other workers with whom During official ceremonies Columbus could it would pay you to get in touch. Along not be found on a podium or on a chair in with this was the encouragement he of­ audience. He preferred to sit in the back­ fered. When I told him th at I beli eved the ground where the "tape recorder" of his mind deep scattering layer was probably caused recorded the important and rejected the by euphausids- and 1 was probably excess rhetoric. jan hahn

12 I WISH I could find the right words to express my feelings about Dr. Iselin. What can I tell you about Dr. Iselin , except that he was a true gentle man, quiet in hi s speech and a very humble man. He would help anyone who asked for his advice (sometimes spent hours just talking to the person) -he was never too busy for that. H e always answered letters from prospective oceanographers, no matter how busy he was, even if the letters were from youngsters. He always treated me with great respect and I feel fortunate to have worked for him. 1, like many others, will never forget such a great man! Kaleroy L. Hatzikon Woods Hole, Mass.

I'l - - - ; . - ~ ...... :. .... -~· ,..,..

-.

Seismic reflection and refraction shooting with explosives was initiated by Dr. M. Ewing and continued for many years without accident on board our ships. Still, no one was happy with tons of TNT on th e deck of our small vessels. The methods have been replaced by using gas or electrically induced " booms" .

Columbus invariably saw the ships off to sea and greeted them on their return. Here he chats with " Doc" Ewin g iust returned from A-150, National Geographic Society / cruise to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 1948.

I'l "He watched us in a cunous way"

MY first meeting with Columbus was marine part of that traverse owing to a memorable. It occurred in the latter part disruption in the working plan of the ship of the su mmer of 1935. A. P. Crary, caused by a serious motor accident just H. M. Rutherford, and I completed work­ before sailing time. The C hief Scientist ing ac ross the continental shelf and coastal lost his life and the Captain was hospital­ plain at Cape Henry, Virginia, doing the ized for several months. Professor Richard marine part of the work on the 'Oceanog­ M. Fields who had been the leading spirit rapher' of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic in a distinguished committee which had Survey. We had got few results in the made it possible for us to undertake the

14 whole program had invited me to spend was tending to the shooting and I was the night in his summer home in Duxbury. tending to the recording. We got the wire He drove with me to Woods Hole and to one of the charges, less than half a introduced me. I explained the hopes for pound of dynamite, caught somewhere seismic refraction work to learn the struc­ under the stern in the rudder or the pro­ ture of the continental shelves and received peller. It seemed like it was not going an opinion that the work was of interest to come loose. We decided to take a coffee to the Institution and that Dr. Bigelow break and think it over. We discussed and Columbus would make the 'Atlantis' various possibilities, including the prob­ available for a short cruise to the Virginia ability of explosion from action of the Cape region to complete the work. propeller, the likely extent of damage in In the early part of October, I received case of an explosion, etc., etc. The deci­ permission to be absent from my classes sion was that the best move would be to at Lehigh for a period of two or three start the propeller dead slow and gradually weeks, and we came to Woods Hole when speed it up to full ahead. This was carried the ship was expected to return from a out without any ill effects, and we were cruise and take a sort of post-season quite confident that by then the little cruise. charge of explosive was entirely free of the ship. Columbus had weighed all Dr. Bigelow wanted to be sure that available evidence, quietly made a deci­ there would be no irresponsible use of sion, and followed through on it. explosives to endanger the ship. He had us first go into a sand pit northeast of After dawn on the second day, we made Falmouth, accompanied by Henry Stetson, a few more tests in the whale boat, the to make some tests about the distance weather was a little rougher than it had between an electric detonator and some been the previous day. Columbus was of the types of explosives to be used that watching us in a curious way-which I would be necessary in order to avoid finally decided amounted to monitoring us detonation. We succeeded in convincing for signs of the expected seasickness. He Henry that there was no risk in the pro­ seemed reassured when the whaleboat cedure which we planned to follow. returned for more explosives, and in it was Albert Crary chewing a big plug of Use of explosives tobacco. Dr. Bigelow's second safeguard was to arrange for a short preliminary cruise Turning point south of Nomansland off Martha's Vine­ Toward the end of this day, we returned yard, with Columbus aboard, to observe to Woods Hole. Dr Bigelow was reas­ what kind of sailors we were and whether sured, and the following day we set off for our procedures were safe according to his the Virginia Capes and the completion of estimates. We went down to about 20 our continental margin traverse cruise on fathoms south of Nomansland and worked the 'Atlantis.' That cruise was a turning through the remainder of the day and all point in my career. of the night trying to get the seismic re­ fraction measurements. For the daytime My first meeting with Columbus led to work we anchored the ship and sent Crary a friendship as pleasant as any that I have in a whale boat with two of the Scandina­ formed in my life. His guidance and ad­ vian sailors, to shoot charges at various vice at all stages from that time until the distances. This small boat operation was present have been a principal source of not feasible by night, but we continued my learning how to work on the high seas. to make tests by setting up geophones on His warm and steady friendship, his love the bottom and floating the charges off the of the sea as an object of study, and his stern of the 'Atlantis' using pieces of wood compassion for the people in all walks of for bouyancy and the wire to the electric life have been a priceless source of inspira­ detonator for tether. tion for me, and, I am sure, for many others. During the small hours after midnight, Maurice Ewing only Columbus and I were working. He Palisades, N. Y.

15 z "'z : ~ u

Fun and Productivity

IN 1962, I dedicated my monograph* . their research, on sea-air interaction to Columbus Iselin them all possible freedom m d to Jearn by with the words: even to make mistak~s anhe was aiwaYJ them. At the same. time en called on an "This effort is dedicated to Columbus available to offer adv1ce wh ble circum- O'D. Iselin to whom the writer owes to help us out of whate~e~!r~~ought uron her interest in the sea and her oppor­ stances or our own actio f inqUiry, tunity to pursue it without restriction. His efforts have provided a stimulating us. While fostering freedor:n~iscip lin e.d Columbus did ot forget hiS atmosphere of broad inquiry into the not.encourag~ scientific dilettantism; I sha earth sciences and a group of lively and enhimselfm~st oft-repeated statement h . me "earn tog productive interacting individual col­ tha~ spend at least of his ti voted to the leagues without whose experience and 50%. a Iiving"-that is, directly d~ the Jabor~­ participation such an ambitious en­ 0 deavor could not have been under­ main mission and suppo.rtd to folloW hts taken. His glorious confidence in us all tory. I have not only tne between fre: example in this bala.nce . but haY. has given each of us the necessary self­ inquiry and miSSIOn· · onentation,) to pass It confidence to tackle difficult problems, also tried (I think successfu~~s students, while at the same time his own humility on to my younger colleag , in the face of the sea's complexity has imbued us with the necessity of con­ MdMa~ m~s' 10 tinuous self-criticism in our attempts to In retrospect, my years 0 HnderCo le were .t he understand its behavior." directorship at Woods .0 f my Jtfe, happiest and most producttv~ ~he flower­ Now many years later that I am, on a and also I think, great years m small scale, a Laboratory Director on my ing of marine meteorology· own, Columbus' example is my main guide and to it I attribute the fun and successful Joanne SIm. pson productivity we have enjoyed. As I inter­ Miami, Florida I sea: preted it, his secret was to pick promising *This work appeared. as Cha~lt erI) 4, inpp. T 88-•e 294, people, mostly young ones, and to allow ldeas and Observ:Jt!ons (V · by Interscience J>ubhshers.

16

WEATHERING STORMS

MY earliest recollections of Columbus are in New Rochelle where we Jived until I was about four or five. They are distinct and clear in my mind to this day. His name was fascinating to me and I loved to roll it over my infant tongue and think of it. And it seemed to me then that he and his name were perfectly suited. Those early impressions of his largeness of char­ acter, his essential simplicity, and his purposefulness have never altered. Years later, when we were growing up, Columbus reappeared in our lives first as legend and then as suitor of my sister Nora. The legend reached us through Terence Keogh, our cousin, and Columbus' friend, follower and sa il -mate throughout up and down the Eastern Shore and Terence's short life. It was a curious, Tidewater Virginia, exploring the rivers almost symbiotic relationship of two com­ and plantations, until we reached Norfolk pletely opposite persons each one requiring and it was time to go home. We set a something of the other's dominant charac­ course directly for Martha's Vineyard teristics. Columbus' calm, generous and and started off one morning in July. By / purposeful nature responded to Terence's night, about 70 miles off Cape May, we volatile wild humor and total unpredict­ found ourselves in a bad blow. A ll sail ability. They were both brilliant sailors were reefed and the tiller lashed. We were and had sailed together since childhood. blown before the gale for two nights and John Churchill and Bob Jordan were also days and ended off Kittyhawk, South his cruise mates in those early days sailing Carolina. There we had to hoist sail and to Labrador and across the Atlantic in beat back up the coast to Norfolk in the 'The Chance.' In his role of suitor to my teeth of the, by now, diminishing gale. We sister Nora he inc! uded our brother pumped the entire time; everything was Howard on the trip to Cowes in the sum­ wet- bunks, stove, etc. Large pieces of mer of 1928. Howdy was only sixteen gi lt ornamentation from the bow of our or seventeen and had had no sailing exper­ chartered ketch kept flying back through ience so his inclusion was definitely the the wind and spume. The only other vessel act of a suitor. His devotion to my sister we saw was a U.S. destroyer. Ned Stone Nora from their first meeting was complete suggested I be transferred to it (l was and I believe never varied throughout their pregnant). Columbus said firmly , "Don't more than forty years together. be silly, she's much more comfortable here" and did not point out that such a In the summer of 1933 Ned Stone and maneuver under the circumstances would 1 cruised with Nora and Columbus from have been quite impossible. We spelled Woods Hole through Long Island Sound, one another at the pumps and I can see the East River (Sis LaFarge hung a bed­ Columbus lying fast asleep on the deck sheet out of her window at the Doctor's of the cabin in his boots and oil skins while Hospital where she had just produced the bilge water washed back and forth Phyllis and we raised flags and waved as over him. we went ripping through Hell Gate). From there we went up the Delaware Bay, across Looking back on this episode I attribute the canal into the Chesapeake Bay and the fact that none of us suffered from fear

18 - hunger, cold, seasickness, and exhaus­ exactly what to do in the event that she tion yes but never panic fear- entirely broke up. due to Columbus. His attitude was that I think so often, too, of his quality of this situation was not in the least unusual, understanding and sizing up a person's was, in fact, to be expected if one went situation or problem and doing something to sea and simply called for resolution, specific about it with no fuss and the mini­ endurance, and vigilance. There was no mum of talk. I know from experience talk about it, it simply emanated from him that he had an unusual capacity to grasp and was exceedingly bracing. He told me another's problems and the imaginative years later that he had not known how our ability to suggest alternatives that could charter, the 'Lady Kelvin,' would behave relieve them. under the buffetting she received. I have Mrs. Mott B. Schmidt no doubt he had a practical plan fo r Katonah, N. Y.

P ERSONNEL PROBLEMS--some unknown person took off with the 'Asterias,' ran out of oil and burned out the engine. C.O'D. said "If he was from the institution, he should be fired, if it was someone from outside and he could fi gure out how to start that engine, he should be hired."

ADMlNISTR ATlVE ATTITUDE-once when being complimented by a staff member on how tolerant and broadminded an administrator he was, Columbus sat quietly. However, when the staff member said th~t son:etimes he was so tolerant it hurt Columbus smiled and said "Well sometimes 1t hurts n1e too." '

L AST minute alterations to equipment before a cruise almost always involved an a ll night stand. On one occa ion, the carpenter shop was locked- and the scientist involved chopped down the door with a fire ax- so the .ship. could sail at dawn. Come morning the irate carpenter confronted lselm w1th an ultimatum of bringing the scientist back into line. Columbus' solution was prompt and to all but the carpenter seemed reasonable. His advice- "Well 1 guess the thing fo r you to do is take an ax and chop down his door." A. C. Vine So much to know . . .

COLUMBUS was one of our great fi gures in oceanography. After World War II when all the scientists were returning from thvir war assignments to their labora­ tories, he was one of the leaders in this shift, the transition from the applied area to the research area. 1 observed this from Washington and as a Trustee, and also as a summer neighbor at the Vineyard where he was the gentleman farmer. He poured concrete for barns and outhouses with the same enthusiasm as he did oceanography. I can only quote him regarding his love for the ocean, and this is not verbatim but in his spirit: "Just in sitting at the shore or in a rowboat and looking at the ocean, one realizes there is so much to know and to learn from the sea, both as a thing of beauty and as a source of information." E. R. Piore Armonk, New York

19 Project Nobska

- I'l

Nobska Lighthouse in the winter

IN 1956 Columbus Iselin, with his usual submarines, the experimental subma rine diffidence, agreed to direct Project Nobska 'Albacore' had shown how greatly im­ - the first of the National Academy of proved speed and maneuverability could Sciences' Woods Hole Summer Studies­ be achieved through streamlining, and after some difficulty had been experienced there was talk of using the concealment in finding a suitable director. Columbus of oceans to hide missile-launching plat­ was one of the most conscientious and forms. Columbus perceived the implica­ faithful members of the Committee on tions of these and other developments and Undersea Warfare, which was responsible also foresaw the continuing importance of for organizing the study. He was one of an adequate understanding of the media the key scientists of the World War II re­ in which the Navy operates- the sea and search effort whose continuing advice .and the air above it. F rom his. World War 11 counsel the Navy sought to have available experience he well knew the extent to when it asked the NAS to form the Com­ which the performance of the Navy's ships mittee in 1946. and equipment could be degraded by the weather in and a bove the sea, and by Because of the extensive advance plan­ ignorance of oceanographic conditions. ning and short intensive period, Columbus accepted the directorship with some reluc­ tance, in large measure out of a feeling As the Academy staff officer responsible of patriotic duty. In those days there were for organizing the study, it became a no questions about the need for preserving necessity as well as a pleasure for me to national security through an adequate work closely with Columbus, and a casual defense and Columbus, along with his acquaintance ripened into a close personal fellow committee members, was dedicated friendship. During the winter of 1955-56 to the Navy with both its strengths and I found myself a frequent overnight guest weaknesses. In 1956, the potential impor­ in the Iselin's big old rambling home in tance to the Navy of a variety of techno­ Milton, driving down to the Cape with logical advances was just beginning to be Columbus on the following day. T he realized. The 'Nautilus' had demonstrated younger members of the family were still the usefulness of nuclear propulsion fo r at home and it was clear that Nora Iselin

20 devoted mo t of her time to them how­ often fast and furious. Columbus supplied ever, the three of us would have cocktails the leadership and stabil izin cr infl uence· together before dinner and the conversa­ the Associate Director, Ivan Ge ttin g-~ tion tended to be about the welfare of the v1ce pres_ident for rese.arch fro m R aytheon Oceanographic Institution and the prob­ ~ suppli ed much of the energy and initia­ lems of the Navy. Having lost both a tive needed to accompli sh what was des ired brother and a close relative in the North within the time ava il able. The combination Atlantic during World War II, Nora found worked out we ll and the results of the it difficult to be detached and objective study had fa r-reaching effects, not only on in speaking of the sea; Columbus took a the Navy but, I would deduce, on the ~elaxe~ and philosophical approach, speak­ individual participants themselves. Most, mg With some diffidence, as though not if not all , wo ul d agree that their ex peri ence wis_hing to im~os e ~i s views on anyone. that sum mer marked a significa nt point This, along With his quiet, unassuming in their careers. A number subsequentl y manner, I came to recognize as a trait of became university presidents or laboratory character. directors and one participant, Paul Nitze (w ho crewed for Harvard with Columbus) His traits eventuall y became Secretary of th e Navy. . He had an extraordinary way of reduc­ Paul Fye, a "Nobska" member, was named mg complex problems and issues to their the director of the Woods Hole Oceano­ fundamentals, which he often stated in a graphic Institution the year foll owing and the new director of resea rch at the Insti­ way t_hat had ~n elegance of si mplicity and practical straightforwardness. Without tution, Robert W. Morse, at the time of appearing to realize it, he was a keen and his participation in "Nobska," was a compassionate observer of human nature. physics professor at Brown. In the inter­ He understood what individuals said or ven ing fifteen years or so, membership on did in terms of their motivations. Although the Committee on Undersea Wa rfare has he was a reserve_d? essentially private inevitably changed, but "Nobska" is still regarded as perhaps the high point of the p~rson, these qualities made him many fnends and fo ll owers, as the experiences Committee's twenty-five yea rs of existence. of the Summer Study were further to demonstrate. Much credit One of our first tasks was to locate a site fo r the summer study group to meet. For the success of that summer's effort, Columbus suggested that Geoffrey Whit­ much credit is due Columbus Iselin, who beli eved that what he set out to do was of ney,_ w~o wo~ked at the Oceanographic Institution, m1ght be wi lli ng to lease his great importance to the Navy and the summer home, Little Harbor Farm as nation and who was willi ng to make the indeed he was. I remember the three personal sacrifices necessary . Until his of us tramping over the snow-covered illness of the past few yea rs made it abso­ grounds in March and shi vering as we lutely impossibl e, Columbus attended the walked through endless rooms in the un­ meetings of the Committee on Undersea heated house. Turning this bicr old hou e Wa rfare fa ithfull y. lt is impossible to into office and conference I%om space know what the eff 01t may have cost him, brought many problems, but must be but he attended the 93rd meeting in counted as a considerable success. T he Annapolis in November, 1970. This was his last. He had missed the previous few A~ad~my had no previous experience in this kind of undertaking and at every turn meetings and was pa rticularl y glad to be Colu m bus and, through hi m, everyone at back among his old fri ends. During the Woods Hole was exceedingly helpfu l. executive session, with not wholl y con­ cealed emotion, he suggested that perhaps In due c~)U r se, a beautiful Cape Cod the tim e had come fo r him to be replaced summer arnved and the ten-week project by a younger oceanographer. go_t u ~der way. _An excellent group of scientists and engmeers assembled and the George W. Wood Navy's top brass took a keen interest in the deliberations. The pace of activity was Washington, D.C .

21 "He was a sort of COLUMBUS ISELIN was one of my nautical Tom Sawyer" oldest friends. We first met as IS-year olds and roomed together our last year at boarding school. While we were there at St. Mark's, he was active in the forma­ tion of the S.M.B.C., the "Boat Club" which was the school's initial entry into the sport of rowing. Columbus was even MY acquaintance with Dr. Columbus then noted (and kidded) for his physique, O'D. Iselin began in September 1939, which stood him in good stead throughout when I sailed to the United States to his distinguished rowing career at school attend the General Assembly of the Inter­ and college. national Union of Geodesy and Geophys­ ics held in Washington, D.C. In this He must have acquired a good sized meeting I met him and several of the sailboat at a comparatively early age, for members of the Institution. I went to I can remember his shanghaiing groups of Woods Hole just after the termination of us during our freshman year at Harvard the meetings, but l missed him there to work on her on weekends. Actually, because most of the scientists there had it did not take too much persuasion, as not yet returned. it was Jots of fun on a warm spring Sunday to be provided with scrapers or pails of The World War II was quite a night­ varnish and brushes with which to attack mare to me and for almost ten years during her spars. In this respect he was a sort and around the hostilities. However, l of nautical Tom Sawyer. was anxious to meet my old colleagues in America, so I left Japan in June 1951 and My most recent contact with Columbus stayed in the United States for two months. dates back twenty-odd years to Woods I met Dr. Iselin on this trip and spoke / Hole. The 'Atlantis' seemed to offer many things about oceanography and its exactly what my teenage son Bob needed development in America and in Japan. in the way of a summer job. He and During the 1930's Dr. Iselin accomplished Columbus, Jr. were of an age, and when many distinguished works on the hydrog­ Columbus, Sr. was picking summer crews raphy and dynamics of water movements for the big ketch, he generously included in the Northern and Equatorial Atlantic. Bob along with young Columbus. Bob was allowed to have the same job on one Since the end of hostilities, I met him or two successive summers, and he and I in many places, at the meeting of IUGG, shall always be grateful to Columbus of IGY held in January 1957 in Goteborg, Iselin for those priceless opportunities. Sweden, of the SCOR, etc. He was always very gay. About ten years ago I was given Hollis S. French Annisquam, Mass. funds from the Carnegie Institution to stay in the United States for six months and stayed for seven weeks at Woods Hole. However, I was told that Dr. Iselin 0 NE example of the informality which was seriously sick so I could not meet him. was pervasive about the Institution in Columbus' days is the time Fritz Fuglister Perhaps the last time I met him was in asked Eloise Soderlund, his new assistant, November 1964 when I went to Haml?urg to dig a certain paper by Columbus out of to attend SCOR meetings there. This the files. Some time later Eloise, practi­ time I enjoyed him very much. cally in tears said, I can't find that paper, On request by Mr. Jan Hahn, I am or for that matter, anything in the files happy to contribute a tiny report about under Iselin." Fritz thought for a moment the friendship between Dr. Iselin and and said, "Did you look under C for myself. Thank you. Columbus?" Dean F. Bumpus Koji Hidaka Woods Hole, Mass. Tokyo

22 IT is indeed surpnsmg that Iselin is gone before me. Of course, he is to be associated with Bigelow, as having been his right-hand man. How different they were! I think of his husky voice and his quiet smile with so much expression in it. Will there be a photo to show it? He seemed to have so much strength in re­ serve as to be able with firmness to "sit on the lid," as Bigelow called it, of the boiling cauldron of the Institution they started. The name "Columbus" surely fitted him. I always hoped to see more of Iselin, greatly enjoying our chats on objectives, a matter of common and great interest. He took over the physical oceanography which Bigelow had so well started. He tried to elucidate the North Atlantic Cir­ culation as typified by the adjacent Gulf Stream. While this seemed simpler than inshore waters, I wondered whether he really found it so. It seemed to become more and more complex. I never had a good chance, with so many other things to think about, to learn from him what might have been responsible for the un­ usual amount of Gulf Stream water, as typified by Salps, in the Bay of Fundy in the summer of 1951, a more peculiar •l condition there in Passamaquoddy Bay \ than in any other summer of my expe­ rience. His quiet smile with so much expression in it. He well supplemented Bigelow by try­ ing to get the basic factors of the main oceanic phenomenon on the doorstep of the Institution. A. G. Huntsman Toronto, Canada

MY association with Columbus extended flow and returned to the 'Asterias" full of over some 30 years, never really close but apologies for a job ill done, expecting to always on my part with the feeling of a be berated for my carelessness. Columbus slightly difficult son toward a strong and looked me over and said, "Any man who kindly father. My earliest recollection of can keep control of himself as well as ~ou his kindliness concerns a time in the 30's did up there doesn't need to apolog1ze. when we were oiling some galvanized wire Go get yourself cleaned up. ~e'll take on the 'Asterias' at the dock on a hot care of the rest." In all our mfrequent summer day. As the lowliest member of contacts over the years, Columbus offered the crew, I was sent to get a bucket of oil his thoughtful and kindly advice just as from a drum lying on a rack on its side. he had done then to an undeserving As I pulled the bung, the heated waste oil crewman. shot out and covered me completely. With William S. Butcher a mild "damn!"; I managed to plug the Boston, Mass.

23 Salute to Columbus Iselin on the occaston of the presentation to him of

I AM pleased to be asked to speak about Labrador. In spite of icebergs, treacherous Columbus Iselin as a man, although I currents, and the vagaries of the compass realize that whatever I can say will be in that region, Columbus made an im­ inadequate. Columbus has towered over pressive start in obtaining hydrographic most of us physicall y and in many other measurements in the Labrador Current characteristics. l think you should have and in collecting specimens. assigned two or three persons to this task instead of one. I am reminded of our early The fo llowing year I was, indeed, days of sk iing in New E ngland when we fortunate enough to be included in the used to poke fun at one of our number by ship's company for Iselin's summer pro­ saying, "It takes three people to watch gram. This consisted of an exploration Ted ski, one to say 'Here he comes,' a of the coral banks off Bermuda and, par­ second to say 'There he goes,' and a third ticularly, the making of hydrographic to say 'Who's dat guy!'" sections across the Gulf Stream from Bermuda to Nova Scotia. When 1 returned In my assignment for today the only home at the end of the summer, a local excuse I can think of for my being the one newspaper reporter who got wind of the to attempt to tell you "who is dat guy" is cruise, sought to get a story from me about that perhaps I have known Columbus what he assumed had been our narrow Iselin longer than anyone else present.* escapes. He was much disappointed to It might be appropriate, then, for me to learn that we hadn't had any . 1t was recount to you briefly some glimpses I had borne in on me then that our avoidance of his beginnings as a leader in oceanog­ of serious difficulties was due largely to raphy almost forty years ago, and how thv the competence and foresight of our qualities which have made him so success­ skipper. fu l were already apparent in those early days. Columbus' qualities of leadership were thus apparent in his early cruises, and We met in 1927 when, as an under­ continued to develop and emerge as he graduate at Harvard College, I was at­ undertook more and more exacting tasks. / tempting to find an opportunity to study The fo llowing year he attempted success­ biology in nature, not just in the labora­ fully to obtain bottom cores along with tory. I had been referred to Prof. H. B. hydrographic data on his cruise to Europe Bigelow and he introduced me to a begin­ and back in a new 98-foot schooner.** ning graduate student who was planning In 1931 he was made Captain of the Insti­ a summer cruise, and who might be willing tution's new 1 42-foot ketch, the 'Atlantis.' to take me along. Later 1 shared a table He was in command of 25 men, many of with Columbus in the room for graduate them his senior, and responsible for the students on the 4th floor of the Museum full oceanographic program for the maiden of Comparative Zoology. In those days voyage of the ship from Plymouth, Eng­ one-half of a table was aU the space avail­ land to Boston. Since the ship carried able for a graduate student. Dr. Bigelow no radio and had no doctor on board, the had been quick to realize Iselin's poten­ young captain was definitely on his own tialities as a future oceanographer, and during the 41 days at sea. was encouraging him to push ahead in this field . Realistic planning I soon discovered that Iselin had be­ Ability for realistic planning was one come a man at an early age. Already, as of Iselin's characteristics. In the early an undergraduate, he had designed, built, work at sea in which Columbus took and skippered a 78-foot schooner chris­ part, each operation was thought out tened the 'Chance'. Coming from a yacht­ and discussed in advance to anticipate ing fami ly, Columbus had acquired much possible trouble with the equipment or experience with boats, but he had decided danger to the personnel. The same fore­ that he wanted to do something more sight went into the planning of successive substantial than merely cruising for pleas­ crui ses, and later, when he became Direc- ure. 1n the summer of 1926 he organized a group of co ll ege friends as crew for his * Except for Bi ll Schroeder and Mary Sears. schooner, and explored the coast of ** Originall y christened 'Atlantis', this schooner's name was changed to ' Ramah' by her new owner, Dr. Alexander Forbes, so that the Insti­ tution's new ship could retain the name 'Atlantis'. 24 he Bigelow Medal on June 22, 1966

tor, into the program of the Institution. During World War 11 when the Institu­ tion's effort was directed toward re earch fo r national defense, and all of us on the staff were working all -out at various proj­ ects, I remember Iselin's saying one day, :'There. sh<;>Ul~ , b e more of us sitting around JU St thmkmg. Another example of his far-sightedness. was his early recognition that efforts to mcrease the productivity of the sea, a for example by fis h farming would come to nothing, if the legal aspect~ of who ow ned the fish, or other product, were not established. T his is one of the points he made in his address at the First International Congress of Oceanography Columbus on the 'Chance' in New York in 1959. Other characteristics of Columbus which Many of us have clear-cut ideas were app~ren t from the early days, and about ways by which the oceans have ~o ntmu e d to make him a great leader, could be exploited and at the same are h1 s selflessness and his encouragement time become more useful to man­ of others. His a.tte~tion has always kind. It is time that the lawyers and centered on the ObJ CC~Jves of the project. the statesmen go to work so that 1 ha~e never known h1m to give a thought these achievable improvements in to h1.s own comfo rt or to the recognition the overall economy can become a of h1 s own efforts and ideas. T he most reality. dangerous jobs he took on himself such as descending through a manhole 'to get The sea is the only part of the a demented man out of a coal bunker in earth that nobody claims to own. the old Albatross; or climbing to the very The old idea of the freedom of the top of the 'Atlantis'' 135-foot mainmast sea has well served its original pur­ while at sea to tend an instrument. Nor pose. It arose because until now the did he ever Jack courage to set out into most important characteristics of the the unknown, either at sea, or in the areas oceans were that they provided for of research, or administration. H is en­ cheap world-wide transport and for thusiasm to forge ahead is contagious. He national defense. I am afraid that has supported new ideas, thought things the idea of the freedom of the seas could be done, and that you could do is somewhat incompatible with their them. A coll eague or subordinate came efficient and wise exploration. away from a discussion of plans with The economic and social problems Co l~mb~ s feelmg strongly supported, if that will be encountered as we begin not msp1red. He has often been able to seriously to exploit marine resources see hidden talents in individuals with little seem to me formidable, much more or no scientific education, and through his formidable than the remaining un ­ generous encouragement, some of these solved scientific problems. I hope eventu.a lly attained outstanding achieve­ that it is significant that during the ment m oceanography. It is no wonder last 10 days our discussions have that Columbus has so many devoted been held at the United Nations. friends and associates today. I am one of. Some very wise agency needs to be many who .has the strongest personnel developing the ground rules within regard for h1m. Foresight, fa rsightedness, which the vast marine resources can selflessness, and sincere encouragement of be developed in an efficient and others have produced a great leader in safe manner for the benefit of all oceanography, and these are the attributes mankind. of the man we honor today. C.O'D. I. George L. Clarke From Oceanus, Vo l. VI, No. 3, March 1960 Cambrid ge, Massachuse tt s

25 "RISKING,

associated with; never about big things going on in oceanography of which I had very little if any understanding. When one talks your language, you appreciate him even more. Mr. Iselin was known by most people as a great oceanographer as indeed he was, but to us whom I feel knew him rather intimately, he was a great man. His passing ended an era for a few of us. THOSE of us who were privileged to be associated with Mr. Iselin during the war Stanley E. Poole years know how much he gave of himself. Menemsha, Mass. Time and energy on his part were of no object. He exerted both to the extreme. In those days several of us were com­ MY acquaintanceship with Columbus muting daily from the Vineyard and we started through his offer to give me a ride got to know each other better than just a to work, while I was a graduate student. nodding acquaintance. Under trying cir­ The vehicle, of course, was the 'Risk' and cumstances we got to know how each the route; Tashmoo Pond to Woods Hole would stand-we were all on the same and return. There were many of us who level. He never failed to measure up. shared this particular aspect of Columbus' He spent much time in Washinoton during those hectic years and I have ~een him come back from conferences com­ Alternate tracks of the 'Risk' show that in pletely exhausted, throw himself into a wintertime early dark, in fog or in storms it corner of the boat, and just "sit it out" all was quite o task to avoid hitting an unlighted th_e way home. He grew older with every buoy or go aground on Middle Ground. Tidal tnp and although we had no idea how currents of 3-4 knots ore to be reckoned with. tou&h it had been, we knew enough to realtze that not only had it been physically a rough session, but that he had been called upon to make some mighty impor­ tant decisions that would affect very substantially certain phases of the war. When he spoke, men of high rank listened until he was through. Nobody knew as much about certain phases of the ocean and the military needed his advice. ' Many nights he would be detained in his office in Woods Hole until seven­ thirty or eight o'clock holding conferences by phone with Washington. Or maybe some high official from our allies in Europe would be in his office. When he would finally appear, he would apologize for being late and for delaying us; this from a man to whom generals and ad­ mirals listened. I had the privilege of driving him home on the way to my home at Menemsha practically every night during those years so we had something extra in common. He always talked about boats and fishing - things I understood and had been

26 generosity, and many distinguished guests of the Institution were treated to unantici­ pated and, perhaps, unwanted experiences if they happened to accompany us on a return trip across the Sound after the southwest wind had a chance to work up for a bit. Over the course of several years we made many crossings. Typically, we would all be closeted in the small cabin where Columbus would contentedly puff on his cigarette either reading or keeping up a running stream of conversation. It was during the short period of year , when he was serving as the Director of the Institu­ tion for the second time, that I particularly remember these voyages. At that time, he Captain Poole at the wheel of the 'Risk' had asked me to serve as his assistant; I learned quickly that there were certain practical problems associated with this position. M Y earliest contact with Columbus Iselin was in the summer of 1939 when 1 came to Woods Hole. My first impres­ Simply disappeared sion of him was that of a tall, lanky indi­ vidual who each morning in his motor When Columbus was in residence at the launch would slip in from across the V ineyard, hi s normal regime upon setting Sound and his home on the Vineyard. foot on the Woods Hole dock in the morn­ ' Even on the days with the thickest _b l a n~ et ing was to coll ect a copy of the New York of fog hanging over the sea, . h1s d~1ly T imes and retire to read its contents. schedule never varied and h1s arnval Following this, and I assume the handling could be used to check the clock. 1 became of those matters which were thrust to his more directly aware of and _ a ppreciati~e attention by anyone who happened to be of the man when 1 took h1s course Ill close at hand, Columbus would then descriptive oceanography in the spring of si mply disappear. He had an insatiable 1940 at Harvard. This was my introduc­ curiosity to know what was going on tion to the dynamics of the oceans ~s around the Institution, and he prowled known at that time. Many of the bas1c into every corner. T his characteristic had principles in oceanography that he de­ a salutary effect on the morale of the staff scribed in those early days have stayed and was a clear testimony to Columbus' with me and are sti ll quite frequently interest in his chosen profession, but un­ used in presenting basic principles of fortunately it had the consequence of oceanography to young people today. ~d leaving his young assistant to his own as my first impression was one of h1m devices. arriving by sea from across the Sound, my My saving was, of course, the fact that last one was this past June, the day of the 1 rode to work with the boss. In addition 40th Anniversary celebration at Woods to providing a constant seminar on all Hole. I was fortunate to have been there aspects of Columbus' interests my rides and following Columbus' address, he went with him on the 'Risk' also provided a down to the dock and boarded the boat tutorial on how 1 ought to be discharging for the return to the Vineyard. Shirley my job. Although this was perhaps an un­ and I were on the dock at the time and as conventional way to transact Institution the boat pulled away, he acknowledged business, from a personal point of view, it our farewell with a lift of his hand and was a marvelous way to start a career. his broad smile. Richard G. Leahy Charles M. Weiss Cambridge, Mass. Chapel H ill, N.C.

27 - what now seems to me odd sartorial Don't bother about advice, "wear a hat". Radcliffe girls .

ABOUT Columbus' scientific life, I know next to nothing, but he gave advice to many people, both high and low, includ­ ing me. When I first went cruising to Maine and Nova Scotia, aged 17, which was the same age as he had been when he first went to Maine in a Victory class racing boat named 'Flapper' with Terence z ..J Keogh, he gave me the best simple list of l1J do's and don'ts for the New England Coast

28 He was a true seaman ...

t CoLUMBUS commanded respect where­ ever he appeared, in whatever company. With larger ships, with expanding pro­ grams, and particularly increased special­ ization it will be a rare man, if any, that ever matches his universal coverage of the science and the art of ocean research, and of seamanship or his familiarity with the total literature, the researchers themselves - and, not least, the sea itself. Whenever I saw Columbus near a boat, I had the feeling that he was a true seaman - the man, the boat or ship, and the water seemed a unit, belonging together. I was impressed with his daily trek from his island home across to his waterfront institution, and one day I asked him how he maintained his record of crossing such a difficult navigational stretch day in and When TIME did a cover story "Ocean day out, without fail, come wind, snow, I Frontier in 19 59, Columbus and the fog, or what have you? "Well, I look over 'Atlantis' were chosen for the cover. In the side, and the look of the water often the July 16, 1928 issue of TIME a photo tells me about where I am." He smiled showed young Iselin above a 1 V2 column his own distinctive smile, but the back of text about his investigation of the Mid­ of his hand was hardly less familiar to him Atlantic Ridge on the schooner. 'Atlantis.' and certainly was less carefully noted than the swirls and the currents around the Stuffy lselins Hole. Columbus made outstanding contribu­ tions to the awareness, acceptance, and I DON'T think anyone realized how much support of oceanography in many signifi­ Columbus would have preferred to be on cant quarters. Its present stature owes active duty with the Navy than in his job much to him. It is notable that he could at Woods Hole. He was reall y interested do what he did and remain so quiet and in his job, of course, but he also would retiring and that he could build ar~mnd have liked to do the other. I used to think him and inspire a group that accomplished at the time that he was silly to think that so much with his leadership but with way, but I realize now that it must have complete informality and camaraderie been a certain strain to have your friends rather than formal management or disci­ and relations off in the war while you were pline. The genial yet productive atmos­ in an executive position at home, and after phere of his staff reflected his personality. Howard Lapsley and Tom LaFarge were killed, I know he did mind. I often envied those of his associates who were qualified and privileged to work He was such a dear with us, and had a closely with Columbus in the atmosphere great sense of humor about the stuffy of the early days of the Woods Hole Iselins of which there were far too many Oceanographic Institution. I shall read in the pre-war days. with great interest the comments of those We both miss him a lot. who knew him from such close association. Sally Iselin Raymond Stevens New York, N . Y. Boston, Mass.

29 Some Early keep him out of trouble. I could see why Columbus liked him so because he had a Cruises marvelous Irish sense of humor and was a thorough seaman. He used to get extra drinking money by fighting preliminaries all over the Province. I FIRS~ met Columbus in 1925, just out We put to sea and ran into a bad of boardmg school, when fo<>-bound for easte r!~ gale, freezing snow, and real several days in Isaac's Harbor east of rough m the Gulf of Maine. The rigging Halifax while cruising with my father on all slacked up and the masts looked as if the Nova Scotia coast aboard his little they wou ld go out of her the second night. Malabar schooner, 'Mary Ann.' Columbus, That was when Columbus showed what an undergraduate at Harvard was also a m~gnificent seaman he was, putting her fog-bound in the same place a'boa rd that t~ n ~S hts. She was a wonderful, fast, sea charming little Maine smack schooner kmdly s~hoone r and Col_umbus was mainly 'Theresa White.' He bought the 'Theres~ responsible for her design and layout. White' from my uncle, Nathaniel Emmons, who bought her at a government auction Wave tests after she had been captured by the Coast Guard while running rum. It was the pro­ I was at a loose end when I got out of hibition era and Columbus had an under­ the Navy in January, 1946, and Columbus gr_aduate crew also including his boyhood gave me a job as liason man between the fnend, Terry Keogh, who never went to Navy and the team Woods Hole wa send­ school or co ll ege. The crew were sure ing out to measure the heights of the waves hitting the booze wh il e anchored in the the atom bombs made at those first tests fog and then 1 realized what a great leader at Bikini. I may say it paid better than Columbus was because he kept them the Navy. I spent most of February and under control and was able to get them March before we took off at Woods Hole out of their bunks to get the anchor up trying to help test the instruments. Spent when the fog finally cleared. He continued a lot of nights on the Vineyard with on to Newfoundland and, l beli eve, even ~olumbus and Nora which was a privilege, / at that early age accomplished useful mdeed. When I hea rd him discussincr oceanographic work. and arguing with Allyn Vine how th~ wave measuring instruments should be m~de _and operated, I realized what a great Terry again scientist he was from both a practical and When I was at Harvard, I saw a good theoretical point of view, although all their deal of C_o lumbus cruising or racing conversation was completely over my aboard vanous yachts. I think he skip­ head. I have to admit however, that I pered the schooner, 'Rose of Sharon,' was astounded when the infernal Jookincr down in the 1930 Bermuda race. In Easter machines l~elin and Vine devised actuall y vacation, 1928, he asked me to help sai l worked, lymg on the bottom of Bikini that lovely Woods Hole schooner the first Lagoon when they blew up the bombs. 'Atlantis,' on her maiden voy;ge from My last hook-up with Columbus was in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, to Woods Hole. 1 960 when I sailed my Concordia yawl It was late March or ea rly April, as I 'Winnie of Bourne' from Bermuda t~ remember, but anyway damn cold snow Portugal and kept a pretty detailed water all over in Shelburne. The night 'before temperature record for Woods Hole en­ we left; Columbus got a keg of rum off a route. It _gave a little point to the voyage wrecked rum runner, mixed up a punch, and certamly gave the crew plenty to yak and gave a party for all the males in about. Typical of Columbus, he made me Shelburne. It was some party but I could fee l as if I had accomplished a major see what a humorous, gracious host he scientific feat when I handed the record was and how popular and beloved he was into him. I end by saying Columbus Iselin there by men from all walks of life. Of was a hero to me all his life. course, his friend Keogh ran the yard where 'Atlantis' was built. I think John Parkinson, Jr. Columbus put him in that remote job to New York, N. Y.

30 The schooner 'Theresa White,' in which Columbus made a cruise to Nova Scotia in 1925, had been a rum runner during prohibi­ tion days. Lying at City Point, Boston her huge mainsail boom shows that she was a 2-master, the 3d mast belongs to another vessel.

Yacht historian John (Jack) Parkinson Jr. on board his beloved 'Winnie of Bourne'.

Lunch at Cap'n Kidd Dr. Iselin met me at the train station, bought me lunch at the Captain Kidd, I CAME to work in the Office of Naval and was with me most of the day. He was Research in late 1949 as a temporary kind, helpful, and most tolerant. J::Iow replacement for Gordon Lill who was on tolerant I'll probably never kno~, smce six months' leave of absence. My task time mercifully blurs many memones. But was to "run" ONR's program in oceanog­ 1 do remember him showing me around raphy, geology and geophysics. A lthough the lab, introducing me to the staff, and life was simpler in those days, apparently explaining what it was that Woods Hole even ONR had some reservations about was doing and why . There was no need the arrangement and Joe Worzel came for him to do so. In actual fact 1 was not down from Lamont about one week a running anything at ONR and no o.ne month to help out on geology and geo­ knew that better than Columbus lsehn. physics. Oceanography, however, was all But Columbus apparently felt that if 1 mine. Soon after J arrived l was told that was ONR's representative, 1 should be the best way to find out what was going on treated like one and 1 was. lt was a great was to get out of Washington and talk boost to both the morale and ego of a very to those doing the work. My first visit nervous young man, and 1 have never for­ was Woods Hole where l had never been gotten it. and my host was Columbus Iselin whom John A. Knauss l had never met. Kingston, R. I.

31

A bard struggle

CoLUMBUS ISELIN greatly influenced my career a~d that of many others through Cowb oys and Indians a conversation I had with him during the war years. We met 40 years ago when the newly Iau!lched 'Atlantis' put in at Ply­ mouth, wt~h Columbus as master of the 9lthFTEN you whe it's th e 1.lttle things that stick vessel. . »'tth a number of the staff and oon n rememb · other v1sttors at the Marine Laboratory sS . after the N . enng a great man. (~>ences Co . at.onal Academy of 1 was able to make the acquaintance both ASCO) w mmtttee on Oceano ra h of Columbus and of the vessel during the was a ch . as formed in 1958 (C Jg pb y week or te~ days t~ey were preparing for u at ter NASC o um us the AtlantiC crossmg. My own contact of to Woods Hoi 0 member) 1 came . the maJ·o . e to ask him about some at the time was limited to a few brief c1 a ph y. Columbr ISSue s co n f rontmg· oceanog- conversations. uon cern for us ~ad a special sense of Two years later 1 visited Columbus at nderstandin the Importance of ocean Woods Hole while on a two-year post­ Jhat the defento our national security. doctoral Commonwealth travelling fellow­ o epend upon ses. of our nation should s.h ip. For .the n~xt five years 1 saw very cean en · . detailed knowledge of th lt ttl.e of h~~ ' smce 1 was working for of "'-~~onment seemed obvioos to aO vanous Bnttsh governments on West In- tof fi n d the muchb so th at 1t. was difficult act clear. oest arguments to make this dies fishery problems. sunny office ne afternoon in Columbus' My next contacts with Columbus came we. were sear~~~rlook in g Vineyard Sound when l accepted a position on the Uni­ I that mi for an analogy on this versity of Miami faculty for the purpose ~~tnt ~~g of establishing a marine laboratory. After c the forthcJS . help the layman reader two years of frustration it seemed that to onversation mmg NASCO report The fulfill such an ambition in what was then h"e famili"' ~~~ngto the advantag~s that have over ant his own territory might a sma ll , ill financed and not very dis­ orne team . adversary. Perhaps the tinguished university would be a difficult if not impossible task. Many other friends ove r the vi m1oht· ."' enJOY· some adva'nt age adv ised me to leave and seek a position ~• - ned " s~mg baseball team? As it 1 0 1 at an established institute such as Woods s ow that' h ata from several years did Hole. Columbu s, however, strongly urged gtames than ?1!1~ teams had won more me to undertake a hard struggle to achieve aoe"' was tooVISitiDg . h team s, b ut t h e a d van- "n s 11o t to b · · the objectives at Miami. He pointed out tith " . '"ggested oh . e conv oncmg. 1 that there was no tropical marine research l mes, Indian . t .at, m early Amencan institute anywhere on the continental ~.cat landsca s (mttmately familar with the many b pe and forests) were able to coasts of the u.s.A., that Miami was lo­ 10 cated closer to the Pacific tropical coasts sost1 the war ~ttl~,s though th ey eventually of South America even than Scripps, and uperior fir 0 modern" technology and epower. that this unique situation cou ld eventuall y justify any initial hardships involved. It ~.sedOver this the ana~ext few months Columbus is no exaggeration to say that his en­ ns with c ogy several times in discus- thusiasm and vision and his friend ly kevel10 admin~ymen,1 congressmen, and top- interest and encouragement were the de­ 1nowled strators. To the best of my ciding factors in founding the School of or not r ~i ea~h time he used it (whether Marine and Atmospheric Science. 1 am haPPY and l am sure that all of mY col­ :e c,edit ~,~~escnt) he took pains to give t arks of 1a e thought. There are many leagues are equally haPPY to acknowledge .recogniz great man. One is his ability with gratitude the important part he has 0 Th1 s was a e th~ contributions of others. played in our careers. that I havequ.altty that Columbus had and F. G. Wa lton Smith smce tried to emulate. Miami, Florida Washington, D.C. Richard C. Vetter 33 THE TECH ENGINEERING NEWS 6~~·;; The New Oceanographic Institute BY C. ISELIN Assistant Curator of Oceanography, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. T he reader can now see that a good oceanographer should be both a seaman and a scientist. In much of the work which needs to be done at sea, a knowledge of engineering is also important as special instruments ha_ve to be developed that can withstand hard usage on shipboard and the corrosive effects of salt water. It is ob_vious that Tech men can be of great assistance to this undertaking and it is hoped that many of them will take an active part.

Go forth and be like Columbus

CoLUMBUS O'DONNEL ISELIN was never left his audience in doubt as to what an ususua! man in many respects, and he thought or where he stood on an issue, some of h1s finest personal traits became but this was done with a disarming gentle­ evident when he assumed the role of a ness and humility that belied the fir m teacher. So naturally and effectively did conviction that he had reached only after he teach, that he was as li kely to leave long and careful thought. an. impact on an informal group of coffee .. dnn~e rs , or a crew aboard ship, as he was His was not the rapid and facile rhetoric to stimulate the members of a formal class. of the glib lecturer; rather, he seemed to He taught a~ mu ~h by example as by carve his phrases out of a complex of speech, and hJs stones of the sea convinced thoughts, but they came out loud and his listeners that he loved that realm of clear. His ideas, his theories and hypoth­ nature above all others. eses, his explanations, all could stand alone by their logic and clarity. The oceanographic part of M.l.T.'s present program in the earth sciences Thus he taught an informative and con­ could not have started and then developed vincing course, and conveyed to his the way it did without the help of that students a strong sense of enthusiasm for incomparable quintet from Woods Hole­ the sea and devotion to the profession of Iselin, von Arx, Hersey, Stommel, and oceanography. Perhaps the best indica­ Malkus. And of these, Columbus stood tion of how deeply he felt his responsi­ bility for meeting his classes was the fact ~r s t, be~au se he came early to help us get mstructwn started, stayed on to help guide that only the foulest of weather could keep our academic program, and continued him from making the long trip from even after retirement to provide a subtle Martha's Vineyard to Cambridge. but definite influence that motivated more Being deeply sensitive, and having great than one student to do a better job than compassion and respect for people, it was he would have done otherwise. natural that Columbus was so often sought It was one of the strengths of Columbus out for assistance and counsel, both of that he never needed to raise the decibel which he always gave cheerfully and in level of his voice in order to be heard or good measure. And perhaps the greatest understood; so gently, yet so firmly and single impact he made on his students and logically, did he present an idea or express peers was the desire generated in them an opinion that it was rare to hear disagree­ "to go forth and be li ke Columbus." ment with him. Although courteous and Robert R. Shrock considerate, at times almost to a fault, he Cambridge, Mass.

34 WHEN you asked for remembrances of Columbus, I thought I would see if there was anything in my notes from Geology 136-Physical Oceanography-which l took the last year he taught it. T here was, hi s opening statement to us, "Oceanog­ raphy isn't a science at all. " Richard Haedrich Woods Hole, Mass.

HE was one of the founding members of SCOR and played an important part in intitiating the International Indian Ocean Expedition, activities in which ~ played a later role, but by the time I came to them, Columbus had gone to somethmg .else. l remember him principall y, in our rare encounters, as a chall enger of conventiOnal wisdom, and a proponent of a fresh and realistic point of view. It is my loss that our contacts were so limited. Warren S. Wooster La Joll a, California

I NEYER have seen nor heard of the partially finished letter addressed to me and written during his cruise from Capetown to Woods Hole on 'Atlantis 11.: .r woul.d love to have it. Very few "Owners" would bother to write the designer g1vmg the1r thoughts and suggestions regarding a new ship. But then, there are very, very few Columbus lselins. Lester Rosenblatt N ew York, N .Y.

. . had numerous battles

THE death of Columbus Iselin was a oratories. It was a long battle to convince personal loss as well as a loss to a ll of us Columbus that it was not an either-or concerned in any way with understanding situation but that funds for su rveys wou ld the oceans. not otherwise go to research. He had serious doubts about the science to come Colu mbus and 1 had numerous battles. from such systematic surveys, and he Yet, I think I enj oyed our differences caused me many an uncomfortable mo­ mo re than I do my agreements with most ment at NASCO meetings. An indication people. For a number of years Columbus of his true areatness was a letter he wrote Iselin was C hairman of the National Acad­ to me in 1967 in which he complimented emy of Sciences Committee on Oceanog­ the federal government on the science raphy (NASCO) Panel on Ocean Wide that was beginning to immerge from .the Surveys while I chaired the comparable SEAMAP program in the North. Pac1fic. federal panel of the Interag~ncy Commit­ It takes a rea lly big man to do th1s. tee on Oceanography. NASCO had recom­ mended that the Navy and Coast & Foremost at all times in Columbus' Geodetic Survey undertake systematic sur­ mind was the science-of the sea and if he veys of the deep sea. We in Washington, fe lt that money was being spent which was under considerabl e obstacles, began the not producing good sc ience, he was any­ operation in the North Pacific in 196 1. Al­ thing but reticent. When he saw that g~od though NASCO had recommended such science was being produced, he was qu1ck su rveys, Columbus saw in them a threat to to say so. His incisive comments and his the more research ori ented activities of the deep love for the sea will be sorely missed private in stitutions. His fee ling was that by a ll of the "sea people" of whom he there was only so much federal support was one of our great leaders. for oceanography and the more that was drained away in surveys the less there H arris B. Stewart, Jr. would be for research at the private lab- Miami, Florida

35 Returning from the JGY section along 16° South, Fritz is hugged by his daughter Betsy

Once upon a time.

THINKING back over the last thirty years, the period during which I knew, admired and worked for and wi th Columbus Iselin , I am struck by one fact. In spite of our close relationship and almost daily meetings, there was a number of contacts, that are usually routine between associates, that never occurred with us- or happened only once in all those years. It is well known that Columbus did not use the telephone casuall y or often, but in my case I can state positively that Columbus called me on the phone only once in thirty years; I never ca ll ed Columbus. Once, when I stopped in St. Helena (! 6°S. Lat.) with the 'Crawford' on the first International Geophysical Year (JGY) cruise, I received a letter from Columbus. He wanted to let me know that we had run out of IGY money but, si nce I had gotten so far away, I might just as we ll go the rest of the cruise. 1 once wrote Columbus a letter which he did not answer either. Once, just the two of us had dinner together. It was in Copenhagen at a very nice fancy place on a hill overlooking the water where, Columbus said , they had celebrated the commissioning of the 'Atlantis' years ago. T he shipbuilding firm had / thrown quite a party at that time; our meal, though very nice was Dutch. Once, Columbus spent the evening at my house; a blizzard was raging and he could not get back to the Island. He did not spend the night because he knew of another place where the beds were longer. I never visited Columbus' home. I came close to doing it once when I met him on th e train going to Boston: I was on my way to Washington, D. C. and he knew th at I would have several hours to wait for the Federal so he inv ited me to stop at his home in Milton. I was delighted at the idea but then I remembered, with disgust, that the editor of OCEANUS had given me an important package to deliver to someone who would meet the train in Boston. I should have forgotten it under the seat, or something. Once I was on a plane with Columbus. Well , I guess you can say I was with him; it was a flight from Copenhagen to Helsinki and I had met Columbus, Roger Revelle, (Sir) George Deacon and several others in the airport. I was talking with Roger as we boarded the pl ane when I became aware that some passenge rs were in another line going into the tail end. You can im agine my embarrassment when I realized that I was flying first class whil e Columbus and Deacon were pigging it back in steerage; I had a hard time gulping down my champagne and caviar. For years I looked forward to the day when I would accompany Columbus on an oceanographic cruise but it never came. Once, when the Iseli n Building and dock were dedicated, I had the honor to be with him coming and going across the Sound. Once upon a time I wrote a paper with Columbus. F. C. F uglister Woods Hole, Massachusetts

36 intuitive, instinctive grasp of their impor­ Gulf Stream Papers* tance, and he continued the inquiry in another P.P.O.M.: "Preliminary Report on Long-Period Variations in Transport of the Gulf Stream System." IF one scouts the offices of the Institution for copies of "Papers in Physical Oceanog­ The synthesis is yet to be attained. raphy and Meteorology" (P.P.O.M.) Vol­ More observational facts-in a variety of ume IV, No. 4, what he is most likely to geographical areas-are sti ll needed, but find .is a bedraggled, dog-eared pamphlet, whoever works in this area does so under commg apart at the seams, held together the benefit of Columbus Iselin's pioneer­ with scotch tape, pencil marked on ing question asking. marg~ns, text, ~nd diagrams-a pamphlet showmg the stgns of extensive and re­ T-S diagram peated use and reference over a period of In 1939, Dr. Iselin published a three many years, actuall y to this very day. This page paper in Transactions of the Ameri­ document, titled "A Study of the Circula­ can Geophysical Union; its title: "The tion of the Western North Atlantic" was Influence of Vertical and Lateral Turbu­ dated August 1936. lence on the Characteristics of the Waters In the last pages of the document, its at Mid-Depths." This, paper drastically author, Columbus Iselin, first master of altered the view of oceanographers toward the 'Atlantis' and progenitor of this re­ the significance of the well-know T-S search, a rticu I a tes the first tentative diagram first used by Helland-Hansen answers to his own large questions in around 19 16. Countering then widely trenchant phrases. prevalent opinion, Iselin asks: With the benefit of 30 years of hind­ " . . . can the temperature-salinity sight, Columbus would probably love to correlation at mid-depths in the Sar­ alter a n~mb e r of statements and improve gasso Sea be explained by lateral turbu­ a few dtagrams, but that is neither here lence, rather than by vertical turbulence nor there. The use that this document accompanied by certain lateral mass still receives and the viability, to the movements at mid-depths [as is cur­ present day, of the research tradition it rently supposed]?" initiated, amply attest to the significance Pointing to the one diagram appearing of the work and the influence it has sus­ in the paper, Iselin says: tained. Every present day physical ocean­ ographer finds aspects of this scientific " ... but if the fresher waters north i~h e rit~nce in hi s knowledge, his outlook, of the Gulf Stream are excluded, all hts enttre frame of reference for generating temperature-salinity curves of the sur­ new questions about the processes of the face layers in March more or less fo llow ocean. the mean vertical temperature-salinity curve for the Sargasso Sea. In other Among the questions that currently words, the temperature-sali nity correla­ seem to be most challenging and important tion of the surface layer of the North to theoretical oceanographers are ques­ Atlantic in winter is not very different tions t.hat have to do with the origin, from the vertical salinity curve in mid­ dynamtcs, and influence of transient effects latitudes. This fact, of course, has been in oceanic circulation. lt seems likely that generally appreciated for some time." a next level of conceptual understanding of oceanic phenomena will come in this The fact may have been generall y ap- realm. But theoretical hypotheses and preciated, but the interpretation Iselin syntheses develop fruitfully only under placed on it was new and immediately the guidance of observational facts. influential. In Chapter IV of the Gospel Columbus Iselin began asking about the according to Sverdrup, Johnson, and relevant observational facts in the paper F leming*, one finds the fo llowing para­ quoted above. He apparently had an graph:

*This is an abbreviated version of remarks made *"The Oce~ns", Prentice-Hall, 1942. during the 1966 presentation of the H. B. Bigelow Medal. (Ed.)

37 "Iselin ( 1939) showed that the hori­ to "surround" a problem-to grasp it in zontal T -S curve along the [surface of] the large and to set it and its implications middle part of the North Atlantic Ocean in a wider perspective than we ourselves is very similar to the vertical T-S curve had established. It must have been from that is characteristic between tempera­ just this kind of framework that Columbus tures of 20° and 8° over large areas of got the Navy early during World War 11, the North Atlantic Ocean, and he sug­ to pay attention to the influence of thermal gested that processes of sinking and structure on underwater sound propaga­ lateral mixing are mainly responsible tion. It must have been in a similar frame for the formation of that water. Exten­ that he attracted and encouraged the group sive use of this concept will be made under Maurice Ewing in the work that led in the chapter dealing with the water to the prediction and verification of the masses and currents of the oceans." existence of the Sofar sound channel. It is clearly in the same vein that he has had And extensive use has been made his profound influence in the National indeed-not only by Sverdrup and his Academy's Committee on Undersea War­ co-workers but by many others as well, fare and on the international research including virtually every oceanographer panels which he has served by the SCOR. here at the present time. For these pioneering scientific achieve­ Uncanny ability ments in oceanography, and for numerous more personal reasons as well, it is an Many of us here today have had the honor, a privilege, and a very great per­ experience of going to Columbus to talk sonal pleasure to salute Columbus Iselin over a scientific idea or a plan of research on the presentation of the 1966 Henry and in the process have experienced not Bryant Bigelow Medal. only the enthusiasm and hearty encourage­ ment he so unassumingly generates but Arnold B. Arons have also encountered his uncanny ability Seattle, Washington

He always seemed to say yes ... /

How does one acknowledge in public Labrador showed me that the scientific words the debt he owes to those without content of the former was small, so in the whose guidance hi s own career would not spring of 1951, as I labored over a history have developed? On the one hand, modesty of American hydrography in the early (maybe my work will not turn out to be 19th century, I enrolled in Geology 136: all that significant), on the other, ambition Physical Oceanography, the course which (if it's my career I must make it on my Columbus taught at the Museum of Com­ own) keep even from one's own inner self parative Zoology at Harvard. Columbus' the truth about how much is owed, how lectures were not inspiring - he was too crucial was the assistance offered, the shy to be theatrical in the classroom, but suggestion made. I can only state as simply they were clear and straightforward. The as possible that, without Columbus Iselin's course followed the outline of his volume help on two occasions a decade apart, my in the Undersea Warfare series, conclud­ efforts to bring the understanding of the ing with a descriptive account of the new historian to bear on those least articulate theories of westward intensification by among scientists, the oceanographers, Henry Stommel and Walter Munk. 1 did would never have begun. not do very well in the course, since most of that semester was swallowed up by my During my junior year, as I cast about thesis, but Columbus did not seem to mind. for a senior thesis topic on which I could He encouraged me to shift the subject on work in a summer spent in the Navy, I which l was to spend a Fulbright year in discovered first hydrography and then the Netherlands from historical cartog­ oceanography. A summer surveying in raphy to the history of oceanography

38 and he gave me an introduction to Pier It seems to me remarkable that, given Groen at the Royal Netherlands Meteoro­ his feeling for the primacy of empirical logical Institute, whose lectures at the oceanography, Columbus presided both as Free University of Amsterdam I attended Director and as Department Chairman the following year. Armed with a copy of over the establishment at Woods Hole of Henry Stommcl's historical paper on the the outstanding group in geophysical fluid Gulf Stream, l set sail for Europe. My dynamics. This breadth of judgment, this career as a historian of oceanography had willingness to encourage others to venture begun. along paths he would not tread himself, was I believe the source of Columbus' In 1960 I was back at Harvard after influence over oceanography in our time. sea duty in the Navy and study at the ln a world where most men are skeptics, Scripps Institution, looking for the spon­ where most proposals of work to be done sorship necessary to permit me to write are scrutinized with a jaundiced eye, a doctoral thesis on the history of Columbus seemed always to say yes. By geostrophy. Columbus kindly agreed to letting others do what they chose to do he sponsor me, and in the spring of 1 961 he made them face up to themselves, to set suggested that perhaps Woods Hole would their own standards and reach them if they be a good place to work in the summer. could . He had the capacity to give people From that quiet suggestion dates the con­ faith in themselves, and I for one owe my nection I cherish with the Institution and career to him. most of the writing I have done on the history of oceanography. T hat summer's In spite of his heavy commitm~nts as a work at Woods Hole laid the foundations statesman of science he was dedicated to for my continuing studies in the history of teaching, to imparting to his successors his geostrophy, and I have been coming back vision of a science of the sea. every summer since to do research and Harold L. Burstyn write on this and other topics. Pittsburgh, Pa. Fluid dynamics Twenty years have gone by since I was first Columbus' student, ten since he brought me to Woods Hole. I had hoped that Columbus himself would sum up his career in the form of an autobiography, but, with the reticence typical of the sea­ going scientist, he found it easier to write about others than about himself. I do not feel that I knew Columbus well enough, in spite of a close association, to say any­ thing personal about him, but one parti­ cular aspect of his vision of oceanography stands out in my mind. Though he always stressed his early training in mathematics, Columbus was committed to empiricism as the source of our knowledge of the sea's motion. The oceanography he believed in was done from ships, with Nansen bottles, reversing thermometers, and the newer tools of our trade. What the ' ...-~_: - oceanographer did on shore was to plot up this data and to try to make sense of -- --.... it. In recent years when the theoretical and experimental work in geophysical fluid dynamics seemed to be bringing forth .- important advances in our understanding, - ~ Columbus insisted that nothing had been \ discovered which had not first appeared in empirical studies. Nansen bottle oceanography

39 . ------::::-""fi I I

"Taking a BT" are the editor ol b the 'Atlan­ tis' and C.O. Iselin Jr. o/b the 'Albatross 111'

The Bathythermograph

IN 1938, before Federal funds were what ranges to expect, when sonar condi­ available for research and development, tions were good and when they were bad. I needed somehow to get my crude models Columbus arranged for us to go to sea of the Bathythermograph built properl y. in the summer of 1938 on the U.S.S. In attempts to convince people, I waxed 'Semmes' from New London. We con­ enthusiastic about my instrument point­ ducted the first exercises of destroyer vs. ing out that it could be used by fishermen submarine using the BT. But the Navy and that every oceanographer in the world was slow to adopt the instrument. would want one. T he president of one instrument firm replied, "Yes, all six of Shortly after the outbreak of war in them! " I became pretty discouraged. E urope, the British were losing many ships to German U-boats, notably off the It was Columbus Iselin who not only Straits of G ibralter. Colu mbus was con­ saw the potential of the Bathythermograph vinced that the U-boats were hiding from for oceanography and fishing, but who sonar detection beneath the strong thermo­ with his deep dedication to and knowledge cline in and near the Straits. With his of U.S. Navy problems, recognized the help I met the British Naval Attache in importance of the BT to underwater sound New York (more or less clandestinely location of submarines. because I was still a British subject and the U .S. was not yet at war). I passed him By the summer of 1938 1 had a crude, the suggestion to use BT's on their but workable, model. At that time the New destroyers. He told me that he would send London Submarine Base was conducting it to London to the Admiralty with a tests in the neighborhood of Guantan­ strong recommendation, but warned that amo Bay and when the surface destroyer it might "just go into the 'lion's maw' and carrying the sonar c~uld n o~ detect the you' ll hear nothing more about it!" For­ submarine, they attnbuted It to faulty tunately, this did not happen-thanks to equipment. Columbus and I w~re col!­ Columbus' persistence. Without his fore­ vinced that many of these mtsses tn sicrht the BT might never have been used location could be due to the temperature in'\v'orld War 11 and would not have had gradient in the surface layer.s acting like the impact on oceanography in general lenses or prisms, and bendmg the rays that continued after the war. away from the object to which they were directed. Clearly if a BT were let down Athelstan Spilhaus by the destroyer they would be able to tell Washington, D.C.

40 ------Underwater Acoustics

IT was through my interest in underwater My contacts with Columbus broadened acoustics that I first became aware of and became more personal through the Columbus' contributions in this area of early days of the Associates' program. the broad fie ld of oceanography. His out­ Later, in the first years of my service to standing theoretical and, later, practical the Institution as chairman of the board, studies as related to the effect of thermo­ Columbus' understanding of the problems clines on acoustical transmissions opened faced and his support were vital in the the doorway and made possible our pres­ orderly growth and the present character ent systems for detection and classification and status of the Institution. of underwater objects, thus greatly en­ hancing our nation's antisubmarine cap­ Noel B. McLean New York abilities. l World War II at Woods Hole

IN 1940 when Iselin became Director of physical oceanographers already at Woods the Institution, the signs of a global war Hole plus some newly imported physicists were ominous. The fact that the Institution and electronics specialists. During the acquired one of the earliest defence con­ next five years the influx of people steadily tracts under the newly-formed National increased. Even when the Institution Defense Research Council (NDRC) was grew to include several hundred people, indicative of Iseli n's leadership, sense of Columbus remained personally and tech­ patriotism, and involvement. nically involved in individual problems to an amazing extent. He spent a great deal Iselin's personal contacts and ability to of time wandering around the lab, quietly sythesize the advice from his many friends observing, gently encouraging, and posing were particularly important in those days questions so pertinent that they frequently when he transformed the Institution from suggested solu tions. basically a summer organization into a year-round laboratory. One of hi s neigh­ To list all the problems tackled during bors on Martha's Vineyard was Dr. Frank the war yea rs would be too lengthy but Jewett of the Bell Telephone Laboratories some of the major ones were: who was involved in preparing the nation's scientists for war-time problems. Jewett's - performance of anti-fouling paints. wise, and probably somew hat fatherly, - current and drift predictions for counsel convinced young Iselin that hi s downed aviators on life rafts. primary responsibility was not to join the Navy and run ships like so many of his - prediction of wind-shear and inver­ friends and classmates were doing but sion layers on smoke screens. rather to run a laboratory to help solve - burying and countermining in mine the Navy's broader problems. warfare. A close contemporary friend of Iselin's - wake suppression for landing craft. was the geophysicist Maurice Ewing who -wave and swell predictions for am- had been doing acoustical work on the phibious landings. 'Atlantis.' These two scientists believed that by sharing their widely different tech­ - development and application of nical backgrounds they could learn more underwater explosives. about the principles of submarine hunting, - submarine diving problems. as effected by the ocean. T hus, the Insti­ - transmission of sound in the sea. tution's wartime efforts were started with a rather small group of biologists and - convoy-routing.

41 he assembled or that were sent to him on - discouragement of sharks. a permanent or transient basis. Certainly -underwater photography. one chapter would be devoted to how he devised and led a system that made chaos -writing of manuals to instruct Navy a little less chaotic, ru les of thumb a little people of all ranks how knowledge more rigorous and jury-rig experiments a of the ocean might improve their little faster and more pertinent. Teamwork situation. was prevelant in most laboratories and organi zations during those war years but it seemed exceptionally pronounced at Medal of Merit Woods Hole. Also unlike most laboratory directors, Iselin had the problem of mak­ For his leadership during the war Iselin ing sailors out of a great conglomerate of was given the Medal of Merit in 1948, the land-lubbers. highest U.S. civilian award. The citation read: Columbus' Right Ann Any portrait of Iselin at Woods Hole Dr. Columbus O'Donnell Iselin, for without mentioning John Churchill would exceptionall y meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding serv­ be deficient. John was a classmate and ices to the United States from 1940 to shipmate of long standing, and in the "Log 1946. Dr. Iselin , Director of th e of the Schooner 'Chance' " was call ed Oceanographic lnstitution at Woods "that hard boiled engin eer." By profession Hole, Massachusetts, because of his prudent foresight and technical and he was an architect, but hi s heart was sc ientific sk ill made a valu able contri­ on the water, and hi s mode of thinking bution in the development and perfec­ and action were obviously in line with tion of the bathythermograph and Columbus'. As a result, Columbus had an other in struments which saved a large number of our ships during th e war. executive who also believed in shoving Dr. Ise lin's vi sion which led him to great responsibility on individual scientists pioneer in a new field of scientific and workers, but who was quite capable research, his technical and analytical of mak ing major decisions, sk ippering the knowledge, proved to be invaluable contributions to the war effort of the ships and arbitrating di sputes in a way United States. that was more li kely to leave the partici­ pants laughing than ;nad. / Signed at the White House A llyn C. Vine Harry S. Truman The Falmouth Enterprise reported:

A second important phase of Iselin's This interview with Mr. Iselin Navy interests started after the war when received prompt clearance from he was asked to serve on the newly formed the Office of Censorship and was Committee of Undersea Warfare of the published on the first page of National Academy of Sciences. He was The Enterprise on August 4, 1944 . active in this Committee for the remainder The story filled six columns of of his life. Iselin's contributions in this newspaper space For the first group of scientists, engineers, and edu­ time and one of the few times cators were partly as a globally oriented Falmouth people learned some­ marine scientist and partly as an experi­ thing of the war effort in which enced sailor. Not only the experience of they lived. his ocean travel but his daily runs from For Director Iselin it was pos­ sible to satisfy public interest the Vineyard to Woods Hole in his boat without alerting the enemy. The 'Risk' gave Iselin a seagoing character incident is unusual because it is and philosophy that was recognized and not usual for men in Director respected by Navy personnel of all ranks. Iselin's position to be concerned with public inter e.st and the peo­ While the above list of problems might ple's right to information. make good chapter headings for a resume Columbus O'Donnell Iselin was of the wartime interests of Iselin and a m an of science and an individu­ Woods Hole, the essence of such chapters al of rare common sense. would be about the wide variety of people

42 Watching the builders' trial of the 'Atlantis' off Copenhagen in 1931 are Columbus Iselin at left and the designers Prof. George Owen and Mr. Francis Minot in caps.

Maybe you ought to teach me ...

I BECAME interested in physical ocean­ pointed time to start, he exclaimed "I ography late in my career as a graduate never thought I'd see you again." One of student of theoretical physics at Harvard. the first parables he related to me con­ As a typical student of my times I was cerned the frustration and retreat of an well versed in quantum field theory and eminent Harvard physicist who had high energy nuclear physics, ignorant of crossed Oxford Street to solve the prob­ classical physics, and unaware of the lems of the ocean. existence of oceaanographic science. My contact with Colu mbus Iselin was not Under Columbus' guidance I first read intimate, but hi s influence upon me and Proudman's " Dynamical Oceanography," my career was profound. He educated me then Brunt's "Physica l and Dynamical with wisdom and sensitivity and initiated Meteorology" and Jefferies "The Earth," me to the realities of the sea. tackl ed "Lamb" and delved into the modern literature. We met once a week My curiosity having been aroused by in the only room of the MCZ where smok­ the reading of a mathematical paper ing was permitted, exchanged brief com­ which mentioned the oceans, I impul­ ments on references and questions, and sively found "Oceanography" in the Har­ then settled down to a long session of vard catalogue and knocked on the door anecdotal oceanography. That summer of Professor Iselin's office in the Museum Columbus brought me to Woods Hole and of Comparative Zoology. By coincidence, introduced me into the intensely stimu­ it was the only half-day that semester that lating theoretical group centered about Columbus was spending at Harvard. I Malkus, Stommel, and Veronis that had asked him to give me a reading course the fo rmed during his Directorship of the next term. He inquired into my back­ 1n stitu tion . ground, muttered " maybe you ought to teach me" and agreed to do so. Two All an R. Robinson months later when I showed up at the ap- Cambridge, Mass.

43 ... help me persuade Henry Bigelow to write a book on waves

..\ ...

- ,. ~- ·,_

IN the winter of 1944 I was dispatched and then jumped a taxi to Cambridge. to Woods Hole to learn something about The mission was not unsuccessful *. amphibious landings. Working under Next spring I was extended the hospi­ George Clarke, my immediate task was ta lity of staying at the Iselin farm on the to build an instrument to record wave Vineyard. There Columbus pointed with action on landing beaches . Columbus pride to his accomplishment as a car·pen­ wou ld walk through the laboratory each ter. In the evenings he would tell about / morning and look over our shoulder, ships and the sea, and of the close fri.ends normall y without saying anything. One the lselins had lost in certain naval actiOns. day he remarked, "I think it would be a Thirty years have passed, and 1 vividly good idea if you had a look at what remember the great warmth of this isl and Maurice is doing." It turned out that haven. Maurice Ewing was building a reference pressure volume connected to the outside It was clear that Columbus had become by capillary leak, so that the reference totally committed to the war effort, as an pressure represented a time average over oceanographer and as a director. I think the last half hour or so. It was just what it was he who first identified the "after­ we needed for what today would be called noon effect" (loss in the range of under­ a "high-pass fi lter." The instrument turned water sound) with a diurnal warming of out to be quite successful, and served as the surface waters. He made many other a standard for many years. contributions, few of them credited to him. He chose to do his work through a de­ Later that winter Columbus came by voted, colorful (if somewhat unlikely) and said, "Would you help me persuade group of disciples: Fuglister, Worthington, Henry Bigelow to write a book on waves?" Vine, Schevill. . . After the war he never This request was very flattering to a green quite regained the taste for perso~al oceanographer. Evidently someone in the scholarship. A selfless man whom I mtss U.S. Naval Hydrographic Office had greatly. talked to Columbus about the need to put Walter H. Munk between two covers a technically sound San Diego, California account of what was known about ocean waves, written in a language that would *Bigelow, H. B. and Edmondson, W. T. ( 1947), make sense to a seafaring man. Columbus Wind waves at sea, breakers and surf. U.S. Navy Hydrogr. Office Pub . 602, xii plus 177 pp., 57 text had decided that Bigelow was the man for figs., 24 pis. (Also translated into Russian in the job. We took the Cape Cod Express 1951 by B. B. Shtokgana).

44 Mood of excitement

WHEN I walked into Columbus' office thirty years ago he had my letter, asking for a job on his desk. He glanced at it for a few seconds and said: "The 'Atlantis' is at sea right now; you will be going on her next cruise. Why don't you read this while you wait?" He handed me a copy of a paper called "Sound Transmission in Sea Water" and I was hired as a bathythermograph observer at $1200.00 per annum. Ten years later Columbus was having coffee with us in Fritz Fuglister's office one afternoon and he said: "Can anybody use the 'Atlantis' next month?" I stuck up my hand and she was mine; it was my first independent effort as an oceanog­ rapher. Sometimes I think that Columbus' method of picking oceanographers in those days could be compared to throwing people into the ocean and seeing whether or not they could swim, but I am the last man to complain about it. I owe my career to my ten year apprenticeship under Columbus Iselin and the group of oceanographers which he led. Columbus' leadership was pretty informal but it was most real. He had the habit of dropping in on everybody in the Institution from time to time because he was interested in everything that was going on. He was able, without saying anything in particular, to show people that he liked what they were doing and that he thought it was good for oceanography. l believe that this enormous, personal encouragement was felt, at one time or another, by every man and women who worked at the Institution under his directorship. No student of the North Atlantic can function without Columbus' two great treatises within easy reach; one on the general circulation and the other on variations in the strength of the Gulf Stream. To me, though, his finest work was a four page paper on the relative importance of vertical and lateral mixing published in 1939. He once told me that it only took him two or three days to write, but that paper changed the whole concept of water mass formation in the oceans. Oceanography is much more highly organized nowadays, and a great deal better paid than it was then but I do not think it is as much fun. Of course, most of us who worked for Columbus in our youth are fat and middle aged now and that may have something to do with it, but I believe that the mood of excitement and enjoyment in the ocean which prevailed in those days was largely due to him. L. V. Worthington Woods Hole, Massachusetts

Nothing was too small for him

DuRING the pre-Christmas season of bought a doll for a Christmas gift. It was 1945 the Institution was swarming with a doll with a definite personality and made Navy officers, Washington YIPs, foreign by a well known, reputable doll manu­ Allied YIPs, plus quantities of mail, red facturer. I was delighted to find such a tape, expanding contracts, problems, and treasure in the local store and was showing people. A IL this rested on Columbus' broad my great coup when Columbus appeared shoulders. A ll this was tightly locked into with as much appreciation of this little the well secured, guarded "Old Building." doll as l had. He smiled and chuckled at T he first floor had a section called "the it and said he was going right over to cage"; this section was wired with an Falmouth and buy one. I offered to do alarm system connected with the Marines this for him but he seemed to want the fun on guard at the adjoining Navy base. of doing it himself. Columbus and Dr. Redfield and the sub­ marine warfare staff worked in this area. His character was so big that no person or no thing was too small for him to I was fortunate in being in this group. appreciate. [ had been to Falmouth at lunch time and Dorothy Ryder Cambridge, Mass.

45 CoLUMBUS did play an important I N 1954 I retired from active business part in my li fe during the time I was and made my permanent residence at President of the Travelers Research Center West Chop, Vineyard Haven. From time in Hartford, Connecticut, 1963-69. He to time I would meet Columbus Iselin on was a member of my Board of Directors Main Street and we would exchange pleas­ and on the Board's Science Advisory antries. Once he said to me, "You seem Committee. Although his hea lth was to be spending a great deal of time here obviously of concern during most of this on Martha's Vineyard." I said, "l have period, he was both conscientious and decided to retire here." He said, "That effective in his participation in Board and is most in teresting; we need more people Committee meetings. He was unfailingly over to help us at the Institution." wise and perceptive in his advice to me, I received a call from Woods Hole invit­ and the quality of his thinking was com­ ing me to become a member of the Corpo­ bined with a grace and personal sensitivity ration which 1 promptly accepted, although that made even criticism constructive. feeling totally unqualified. Whether it is Criticism was not his usual mode of true or not, 1 somehow detected the fine address, however. Normally, his contri­ Italian hand of Columbus Iselin inviting butions were made in the more positive me to join. form of suggested approaches to problem resolution, mention of new opportunities I might quote from my 35th Anniversary for research, and comments calling atten­ report of the class of 1925 Harvard. "My tion to the most promising features in our principal change in status since the last work or plans. This kind of gentle, positive class report, other than becoming a grand­ reinforcement exerted great influence on fa ther at long last, was my recent election me and my colleagues. as a Member of the Corporation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Columbus combined the qualities of Now 1 am in reall y deep water." professional leadership and advisor with The deep water, however, has, down those of friendship in an extraordinarily through the years, drawn me closer and attractive way. The pleasure these memo­ closer to Columbus Iselin, cemented our ries provide compensates in part for the friendship, taught me more about the hole left by his passing. unlimited horizon of our oceans, and / Douglas L. Brooks brought me to say goodbye and a job well Hartford, Conn. done! Edward M. Douglas Vineyard Haven, Mass. Be the fellow to answer questions

IN 1939, George Woolard and I were simple suggestion describes much of my measuring gravity beside the old Penzance professional life since that time. garage, where the Smith building stands. My relations with Columbus have been Columbus paused on his way for a chat. an important and influential part of my I do no remember what any of us said, professional life. No matter what the but a strong impression was left with me occasion, I have always felt and frequently that here was a most significant man. made use of the impulse to ask his advice. In January 1946 I had decided to look This has to be, I think, because many of us into oceanography as a peacetime pursuit. on the early post-war Institution staff knew Colu mbus had apparently made up his that his advice would be sound and would mind, before the interview, that he would reveal the fundamentals of the problem we hire me because he proposed that I come were facing in ways that we had not been to Woods Hole and make myself into the sensitive to. This, after all, is exactly what fellow who could answer questions the one hopes for in good advice. 4 Navy might ask about underwater acous­ Like a host of other people, I have en­ tics. This is no quotation, but I am sure joyed his friendship and his wonderful many readers will recognize it as just humor. He is certainly a man who con­ about what Columbus might have said. tinues to be part of all of us. Although my scientific interests are far J. Brackett Hersey from limited to underwater acoustics, this Washington, D.C.

46 · \_ I

Mrs. C. 0. Iselin Dies so completely at home that they would w_ander in a~d out o~ the Chappaquansett Shortly After Husband kitchen beggmg for tidbits. A warm, outgoing woman with a highly Mrs. Eleanor Lapsley Iselin, widow of developed sense of humor, Mrs. Iselin the oceanographer, Dr. Columbus O.lselin delighted her friends with her stories­ of Vineyard Haven, died unexpectedly at among them the tale of how, only days her home on. Monday, fo ll owing her fa­ before her marriage, she had fallen off a mous huband In death within less than two horse into a brier patch and her face had weeks. Dr. Iselin died on 1 an. 5. been so badly scratched that she wondered Mrs. Iselin was 63 years old, a native if her husband-to-be wou ld want to go of New Rochelle, N. Y., but for 37 years through with the ceremony. she and her husband had made their home During World War II, Mrs. Iselin was on their farm at Chappaquansett in Tis­ active in war work of all sorts, and her bury. energy and efficiency in efforts for the Red Before she met Dr. Iselin in 1927 she Cross were admired by all who knew her. had studied in Paris and worked in New At that time, too, she started what was "X"ork as a m~dical _secretary. With her called the "Ship's Bell School" in the barn sisters, Kathenne, E lizabeth and 1 ane, she in back of the Iselin house, and there, a was noted for her horsemanship, and a young English refugee, the Iselin children New Yorker cartoon once showed the and several Island neighbors studied. Two three Lap~ley gi_rls tumbling from their other youngsters whom she virtuall y horses while the1r dogs looked on sur- adopted were Mavis and Carol Randolph, prised. ' whose aunt, Miss AJice Warring, was her cook for 30 years. Household help always All her life a devoted horsewoman be­ stayed long with Mrs. Iselin. For decades, fore her marriage, she had schdoled Miss Martha Caughey was the family hunters i_n Westchester County. It was nurse. Mrs. Jsehn who saw to it, once the family had moved to the Island from Milton, that Surviving are two sons, Columbus 0. there were horses on the farm. At first, Iselin Jr. of Dover and Sgt. Thomas Iselin these . were hunters; then she bought a of Fort Devins, and three daughters, Miss large Jumper; then Arabs struck her fancy Eleanor E. Iselin of Boston, Mass. Mrs. for, being smaller horses they seemed Marie Doebler of Naples, Italy, and Miss more suitable for the Iselin children. Victoria Iselin of Cambridge. There are also six grandchildren. O~e Christmas, she bought a male ~exican burro, St. Bernard-sized at the Surviving her, also, are two sisters, Mrs. time of _t he purchase, and brought it to the Mott B. Schmidt of Katonah, N. Y., and Island 111 the back of the family car. It Mrs. 1ohn Hallowell of Cambridge. was not long before Mrs. Iselin feared it would be lonely and purchase a mate and Reprinted from- Vineyard Gazette-1/22/71 the pair, who became beloved pets, 'were Martha's Vineyard

47 In addition he was the author of numerous popular articles and technical reports. His many speeches, care fully written in longhand are a source of much historical value.

Bibliography of COLUMBUS O'DONNELL ISELIN 1930. Recent work on the dynamic oceanography of the North Atlantic. Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, lOth Ann. Meet.: 82-89. 1930. A report on the coastal waters of Labrador, based on explorations of the "Chance" during the summer of 1926. Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts Sci., 66(1): 1-37. 1933. The development of our conception of the Gulf Stream system. Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 14th Ann. Meet. : 226-231. 1933. Some phases of modern deep-sea oceanography with a description of some of the equipment and methods of the newly formed Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Smithsonian lnst., Ann. Rept. for year ending June 30, 1932 (Publ. 3198): 251 -267. 1934. Temperature-salinity correlation within the Florida Current. Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 15th Ann. Meet. : 208-209. 1936. A study of the circulation of the western North Atlantic. Papers in Physical Oceanography and Meteorology, 4(4): 1-101. 1936. The influence of the Mediterranean outflow at mid-depths in the Sargasso Sea. Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 17th Ann. Meet.: 219-221. 193 7. The new plans for the cooperative investigation of the North Atlantic circul ation. Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 18th Ann. J Meet. : 222-223. 1938. The infl uence of fluctuations in the major ocean current on the climate and fisheries. Collecting Net, 13(7): 1-4. 1938. Problems in the oceanography of the North Atlantic. Nature, 14 1(35 74): 772-776. 1938. A promising theory concerning the causes and results of long­ period variations in the strength of the Gulf Stream system. Tram. Amer. Geophys. Union, 19th Ann. Meet.: 243-244. 1939. The influence of vertical and lateral turbulence on the character­ istics of the waters at mid-depths. Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 1939: 4 14-4 17. 1939. Some physical factors which may influence the productivity of New England's coastal waters. J. Mar. Res., 2( I): 74-85. I 940. Preliminary report on long-period variations in the transport of the Gu lf Stream system. Papers in Physical Oceanography and Meteorology, 8( I): 40 pp. 1940. The necessity of a new approach to the study of the circulation on the continental shelf. Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 1940: 347-348. 1942. Interaction between the hydrosphere and the atmosphere. Tram. New York Acad. Sci., (2), 4(3): 99-106.

48 194 7. Preliminary report on long-period vanat1ons in the transport of the Gulf Stream system. Int. Hydrogr. Rev., 24: 92-94. [Extract from: Pap. Pbys. Oceanog., Meteorol., 8(1)]. 1948 and F. C. Fuglister. Some recent developments in the study of the Gulf Stream. J. Mar. Res., 7(3): 317-329. 1949. Principal instrumentation problems of deep-sea oceanographic exploration. Instruments, 22(10): 898-901. 1950. Some common characteristics of the Gulf Stream and the atmos­ pheric jet stream. Trans. New York Acad. Sci., (2) 13(2): 84-86. 1952. The Gulf Stream system. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 96(6): 660-662. 1955. Recent advances in our understanding of the circulation problem and their implications. J. Mar. Res., 14(4): 315-322. 1955. Oceanographic problems of the Arctic Ocean. Arctic, 7(3/4): 195-198. 1955. Coastal currents and fisheries. Pap. Mar. Bioi. and Oceanoar., Deep-Sea Res., Suppl. 3: 474-478. 1956. We hope to witness the start of a hurricane. Oceanus, 4(3): 3-7. 1957. Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873) "Pathfinder of the' Seas," the development of oceanography. Newcomen Publ. in N. Amer., Princeton Univ. Press. 8-26. 1957. Synoptic studies in oceanography. Oceanus, 5(3/4). 3-12. 1958. Synoptic studies in oceanography. Geophys. Monogr., 2: 169-1 74. 1959. The basic thermal structure of the oceans. In: Environmental factors influencing the performance of naval weapons systems, W. H. 0. 1., Pt. I: 9-22. (Unpublished manuscript.) 1959. New discovery in physical oceanography. Oceanus, 6(2): 11-I2. 1960. The World Ocean. Oceanus, 6(3): 5-6. ]·959. Use of the ocean. (Editorial. Based on remarks at the concluding session of the First International Oceanographic Congress). Science, 130(3380): 895. 1961 . An interpretation of the deep current measurements. Oceanus, 7(3): 9. 1962. Inshore fisheries management. Oceanus, (3): 2-6. 1962. Oceanography, 1962. Navigation, 9(3): 182-184. 1963. Improving world fisheries. 2. The oceanographer's viewpoint. Special Issue on Marine Biology, AIRS Bull., 13(5): 69-70. 1963. The loss of the THRESHER. Oceanus, 10(1): 4-6. 1964. From Cape Town to Woods Hole. Oceanus, 10(3): Il-12. 1964. Oceanographic forecasts. Oceanus, I0(4): 8-13. 1969. (with K.O. Emery) Human Food from the Ocean. Science, I57(3894): 1279-1281. C. O'D. Iselin Issue Vol. XVI, No.2, June 1971

Contents

AN APPRECIATION by J. N. Carruthers 3 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF COLUMBUS O' DONNELL ISELIN 48 IN MEMORIAM- MRS. C. 0 '0 . ISELIN 47

Contributors

Arnold B. Arons 37 Hilary B. Moore 12 Doug/as L. Brooks 46 George L. Moses 17 22 Dean F. Bumpus Walter H. Munk 44 Harold L. Burstyn 38 Rob ert Munns 9 Wm . S. Butch er 23 Jerome Namias 32 Jo seph Chase 7 John Parkinson Jr . 30 George L. Clarke 24 E. R. Piore 19 Edward M. Douglas 46 Stanley E. Poole 26 Gunther Dietrich 12 Rog er Revelle 8 Maurice Ewing 14 Allan R. Robinson 43 Charles J. Fish 32 Lester Rosenblatt 35 Hollis S. French 22 Francis C. Ryder 6 F. C. Fuglister 36 Dorothy Ryder 45 Paul M. Fy e 1 Mrs. Matt B. Schmidt 18 Richard Ha edrich 35 Robert R. Shrock 34 Kaleroy L. Hatzikon 13 Joann e Simpson 16 J. Brackett Hers ey 46 F. G. Walton Smith 33 //mo He/a 9 Athelstan Spilhaus 40 Koji Hidaka 22 Raymond Stevens 29 A. G. Huntsman 23 Harris B. St ewart Jr. 35 Lewis Iselin 28 Richard C. Vetter 33 Sally Iselin 29 Allyn C. Vine 19 and 41 John A. Knauss 38 Charles M. Weiss 27 Richard G. Leahy 27 George W . Wood 20 Gordon Li/1 12 Warren S. Wooster 35 Noel B. McLean 41 L. V. Worthington 45 Daniel Merriman 10

Published by the WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS