The collection consists of papers of George Francis McEwen, the first physical oceanographer in North America. The collection includes correspondence, committee files, documentation of scientific meetings, research reports, lecture notes, course lists, syllabi, bibliographies and reading notes, manuscripts of published and unpublished papers, calculations, data, drawings and specifications of tools and oceanographic instruments and biographical information documenting the scientific career of George Francis McEwen, who served as a physical oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1908 until his retirement in 1957. McEwen's scientific interests include hydrography, meteorology and oceanography. His early work focused on the determination of ocean currents using temperature and long term weather forecasting. He was one of the first North American scientists to study the dynamical oceanography work of V.W. Ekman and Vilhelm Bjerknes. The bulk of the material in the collection, including annual research reports, documents McEwen's work as a meteorologist and hydrographer. McEwen designed and built a number of oceanographic instruments. The collection includes some files documenting this work. McEwen taught courses in physical oceanography and meteorology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography beginning from 1912 to 1935. He also presented lectures at the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley and at other institutions. McEwen gave University Extension courses in mathematics, meteorology and oceanography. The collection includes fullsome documentation of McEwen's lectures and his work as a teacher. It also includes material documenting the work of his students and assistants including Nelphi Willard Cummings. From 1936 to 1939, McEwen supervised a compilation of ships' meteorological observations taken between 1904 and 1934. This work was undertaken at Long Beach, California in cooperation with the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office. The collection includes files documenting this work. During World War II, McEwen's early work on the dispersion of silt in the ocean attracted the interest of Manhattan Project scientists. He worked briefly at Los Alimos in 1944. He later calculated the dispersion of radioactive material during Operation Crossroads, but the collection includes little information documenting this work. The collection includes material documenting McEwen's professional service to scientific organizations including the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the Engineers Club of San Diego, and the Pan Pacific Congresses. This collection includes material received from a number of sources. The original order of the collection was lost. For this reason, there are many gaps in the collection.
