and they had to chance their Ww in a hole ty estimation about the thickness of the coral, which meant sore rr convinced they were 214 their conce pt about how the moon was forred, change about the age of the earth, which meant sore change of w _PREMONT-SMITH: [Laughter] And this went on until on Yes! they finally reached a fantastic depth of about 1200 feet wow om DONALDSON: And that includes the tides, thick the coral cap might be. 10 out of food and we were running out of drinking liquor, which 11 everybody worried about because the supply vessels were bring- 12 ing mud to grease this hole that they were drilling down into 13 the atoll. and they still hadn't found out how old the earth was nor how By this time we were running “y . The following year they moved over to Eniwetok and 15 began to drill there and the element drilling went down toa 4 14 16 total of som 4300 feet before they came to the basal strata 17 on which the coral was anchored. 18 FREMONT-SMITH: They did find it there? 19 DONALDSON: 20 21 Yes. They actually found that there was a bottom to this boundless pile of calcium carbouate, a The illustration I hope is not wasted. But it's 22 indicative of som of the needs to know in the netural environ- 23 ment in which we are working. ou the seas are so imperfectly known that we son@tires find such 25 great gaps in our thinking because we don't have the physical 26 and biological paraneters upon which to work. 27 ment of the Senior Senator from our State who repeatedly has 28 made the statement that we know a great deal more about the 29 back side of the moon than we do about the oceans that cover 30 72 per cent of the earth's surface, 31 background maybe we can be a bit more spécific in the things 32 that we are going to te talking about, 33 The seas and the =:tolls within Like the state- Well, with this as a The tests were conducted, as I nentioned, at these Stafford Warren DOE/UCLA co hd ees