Working with the data in WHOI-89-24-data.zip All data in the database are treated as tables of numbers. The header for each column is stored with the table and serves to identify visually the data in that column. The data must be numeric; the value -999 is used to identify a missing data item. The data are stored in MS-DOS ASCII files containing headers and data in a single column using the Flierl database format: the first line has the number of columns (NC), the next NC lines have the table headings, and the following groups of NC lines contain successive rows of the table. These files have been successfully opened with NotePad version 6.1.