Bill and Bob, Where Did You Come From (LaFond, Gehring, Imes ...

In order to follow up on this new concept, Dr. Vaughan
asked me to plot some T -S diagrams. This was my
first introduction to oceanography.
So it was with a great deal of delight and excitement
that I first went to work at Scripps on 14 September
1933. It wasn't a paying job initially, more like
volunteer work, but it offered a chance to do something
at an exciting academic institute, following my
graduation from San Diego State College a year before.
A large drawing table was available in the open
work area outside Dr. George McEwen's office on the
second floor of Ritter Hall. Seated on a drafting
Dr. McEwe.n's Outer Office
stool and with a roll of millimeter cross-section paper
I excitedly started plotting temperature versus salinity
for about 100 deep oceanographic stations. It was fun,
and since I had minored in math and taken mechanical
drafting, the work offered no problem. I had chosen
suitable sc:ales, but the resultant T -S curves took on
worm-1 ike shapes, with data points clustered at one end
of the curve. The lines connecting points were eventually
inked and blueprint copies were made, cut up,
arranged geographically and inspected. Dr. Vaughan
said they were great, but it was not unti I a few years
later that Dr. Sverdrup explained their real significance.
I really believed Dr. Vaughan thought that
they might be useful for his academy report, but
they were not included.
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