Discusses his youth and education; graduate study at Lamont; his first cruises on the research vessels Vema; being drafted into the army during graduate school and doing ballistic research at Aberdeen Proving Ground; his first year-long cruise aboard the Vema after his military service; the instruments used for research in heat flow and sea-floor spreading; his dissertation on heat flow in the Indian Ocean;*Prominently mentioned are Sir Edward Bullard, Charles Drake, Maurice Ewing, Bruce Heezen, Henry Kohler, Xavier Le Pichon, Jack Nafe, Jack Oliver, Frank Press, Manik Talwani, J. Lamar Worzel.