Biographical Memoirs Volume 64 (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Columbus O'Donnell Iselin
Columbus O'Donnell Iselin
Pages 164-187
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From page 165... ...
Marks and Harvard. There was a gentlemanly tradition of oceanography at Harvard, starting with the world cruises of Alexander Agassiz (personally financed by Agassiz)
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From page 166... ...
T cannot think of his directorship of the Woocls Hole Oceanographic Institution as being similar in kind to that of other administrators whom ~ have known, there or elsewhere. Columbus seemed to assume the duties ant!
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From page 167... ...
Due to the salesmanship of his friend Frank Lillie, the Rockefeller Foundation underwrote the formation of the Woocis Hole Oceanographic Institution, the construction of a laboratory builcling, wharf, and the research vessel "Atlantis." Bigelow now had his ship and captain, twenty-five-year-oIcl Columbus Iselin. He couic!
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From page 168... ...
from Bermuda to Chesapeake Bay had exhibited a variability in dynamic topography that he thought might be related to changes in transport of the Gulf Stream. This great stream is certainly the major current of the western North Atlantic and for centuries geographers had speculated on how its variability might affect the climate (and fisheries)
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From page 169... ...
Woodcock, at that time attached to the technical staff of "Atlantis." Iselin wrote this material up in a "Preliminary Report on LongPerioc] Variations in the Transport of the Gulf Stream System" July 19401.
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From page 170... ...
confront the newly recruited academics. He had a certain knowlecige about conditions at sea and the geographic distribution of various properties that prover!
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From page 171... ...
. Harold Backus was the first person to go on the payroll of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
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From page 172... ...
FIe had somehow found under the bunk in his cabin a very new looking blow torch, full of gasoline. I realized that I had not purchased a blow torch in Copenhagen and, of course, gasoline was not supposed to be on board below deck.
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From page 173... ...
In 1942 the work of the institution turned toward practical application of oceanographic knowledge to warfare and for the first time was busy all year round. The "Atlantis" was sent for safety to the Gulf of Mexico, where Woodcock made a detailed study of diurnal temperature fluctuations during March and April a phenomenon of importance in understanding the anomalous "afternoon effect" in the shallow propagation of sonar waves.
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From page 174... ...
effries Wyman and Alfred Woodcock stuctiect low-level meteorological phenomena pertinent to aircraft carrier operations and laying smoke screens. Alfred Redfield led a staff of about twenty persons in a study of antifouTing paints and fouling organisms for the Bureau of Ships a continuation of Waksman's earlier work.
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From page 175... ...
Of perhaps even more importance was the availability after the war of Loran, which improved navigation to the point where cletailecI surveys could be made meaningfully. The emphasis in Gulf Stream research shifted from the intractable problem of Tong-perioc!
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From page 176... ...
Columbus was made un of a strange mixture of friencIly concern and aloofness. ~ , It was one of Fuglister's great sorrows that despite years of laboring on the Gulf Stream he was never once invited to Tselin's home on the Vineyard.
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From page 177... ...
To alleviate the awkwardness, T pointed out the sparsity of deep data in the Indian Ocean. There was a big meeting going on downstairs, ~ think of SCOR the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, an international belly.
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From page 178... ...
been relatively free from direct control by the Boarct of Trustees in fact, he rather airily regarded the annual trustees' meeting as a somewhat tiresome formality. The war tract brought a new breed of professional, acaclemic, and industrial administrator into the institution's Executive Committee.
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From page 179... ...
As you ascencled the stairway you'd pass a door with a frosted glass panel enscribed "Woocis Hole Oceanographic Institution." He must have spent very little time there, in fact so little that at the time of the incident that ~ want to recall the new museum director had not macle his acquaintance after two years on the job. The commonwealth of Massachusetts usec!
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From page 180... ...
To his eyes Tselin seemed thin and old, there were missing teeth, he had recently been hospitalized for alcoholism, and was unpleasantly critical of others a thing totally uncharacteristic of the younger man. Columbus died in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on January 5, 1971.
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From page 181... ...
(Honorary) , Brown University, 1947 EXPERIENCE Physical Oceanographer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1932-40 Director, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1940-50 and 1956-58 Senior Physical Oceanographer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1950-56 Henry Bryant Bigelow Oceanographer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1958 Chairman, Department of Theoretical Oceanography and Meteorology, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1962 HONORS Alexander Agassiz Medal, 1943 Honorary Doctorate of Science from Brown University, 1947 Legion of Merit Medal, 1948 Henry Bryant Bigelow Chair in Oceanography, 1958 Henry Bryant Bigelow Medal, 1966 TEACHING EXPERIENCE 181 Assistant Curator of Oceanography, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 1929-48 Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1936 Assistant Professor of Physical Oceanography, Harvard University, 1936-39
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From page 182... ...
182 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS Associate Professor of Physical Oceanography, Harvard University, 1939-60 Professor of Physical Oceanography, Harvard University, 1960 Professor of Physical Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1959 OTHER Member, American Geophysical Union, 1929 Member of Corporation and Trustee, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1936 Trustee, Bermuda Biological Station for Research, Inc., 1936 Trustee, Marine Biological Laboratory, 1941-52 Fellow, New York Academy of Sciences, 1941 Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1944 Member, Committee on Undersea Warfare, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, 1946 Member, American Philosophical Society, 1950 Trustee, American Museum of Natural History, 1951 Member, National Academy of Sciences, 1951 Member, Committee on Oceanography, National Academy of Sciences, 1957-64 Member, Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) , 1957 Member, NATO Subcommittee on Oceanographic Research, 1959 Member, NASCO Ocean-Wide Surveys Panel, 1962 Member, Board of Directors, Scientific Advisory Committee, Travelers Research Center, 1963 Board Member, American Geographical Society, 1963 RESEARCH Oceanic circulation, underwater acoustics, marine resources
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From page 183... ...
: 226-3 1. 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.
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From page 184... ...
A promising theory concerning the causes and results of longperiod variations in the strength of the Gulf Stream system. Trans.
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From page 185... ...
13~2~:8~86. 1952 The Gulf Stream system.
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From page 186... ...
. 1965 Notes on the problem of predicting near surface temperature gradients in the open ocean.
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