2G William Keith Brooks 



Professor Brooks's lead, made advances in the culture of 

 the oyster, in New England, in New Jersey, in Oregon, in 

 Louisiana, in the Carolinas and in Maryland itself. For 

 at the eleventh hour a good beginning was made, and 

 Brooks's disciple. Professor Caswell Grave, the zoological 

 member of the Shell Fish, Commission of Maryland, has 

 utilized the new legislation for a most promising realiza- 

 tion of Professor Brooks's dreams of scientific knowledge 

 and control of the vast natural resources of the State. 



But the philosophical problems of biology always took 

 first place in Brooks's mind, and it was at Beaufort, N. C., 

 that he found marine life presenting the problems best 

 suited to his patient and enthusiastic labor. The yearly 

 work of his laboratory, established in the old Gibbs house 

 (that boasted the distinction of being built of cypress and 

 put together with copper nails), added much to the facts 

 of marine embryology and to the number of now well- 

 known investigators. 



Upon that foundation was ultimately builded the 

 present well-known marine station of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries at Beaufort, embodying a dream that Professor 

 Brooks could not himself realize as the university became 

 no longer able to maintain the "Chesapeake Laboratory." 



Financial embarrassments of the university led to the 

 abandonment of steam launch and sloop and discontinu- 

 ance of the university's summer school at Beaufort, but 

 from year to year, when it was possible, temporary sta- 

 tions were established by Professor Brooks and his men ; 

 in the Bahamas, at Green Turtle Cay, at Nassau, at the 

 Bimini Islands ; and later in Jamaica at Port Henderson, 

 and again at Port Antonio. 



Meantime, as director of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission Laboratory, at Woods Hole, in 1888, and while 

 upon expeditions of the Grampus, he had opportunity to 

 renew his acquaintance with the fauna of the North 

 Atlantic and to explore the Gulf Stream. 



