THE MINNESOTA SEASIDE STATION. 195 



The usefulness of a nuiriiie station on. the Pacific as an adjunct to 

 the laboratories of a university located far inland naturally needs no 

 proclamation. During more than two decades, experience gained by 

 American students at such points as Beaufort, Woods Holl, Cold Spring 

 Harbor, Pacific Grove and elsewhere has demonstrated that the broad- 

 >est and best foundations for a knowledge of morphology can not be laid 

 without the assistance of instruction and research at the shore. More 

 and more must the recognition of this fact become general, and with 

 each succeeding year the number of serious students at the ocean-side 

 and facilities for their work must increase and improve. That there 

 should be stations upon both the eastern and the western coasts is im- 

 jjerative, and each will come to have its peculiar excellences and will 

 develop its special lines of work. The eastern station has the advan- 

 tages of accessibility while the western enjoys those of remoteness. At 

 the laboratory on the eastern shore one may perhaps look for more con- 

 veniences and refinements; at that on the western coast one may expect 

 more novelty and a greater openness and freedom of opportunity. To 

 the student in the far west nothing can be more helpful than contact 

 with the east ; for the student in the east nothing is more to be desired 

 ilian a sojourn in the west. Apparently, then, startions upon the Atlantic 

 and Pacific coasts are alike desirable, and each with its own field of use- 

 fulness may be the complement of the other. Not only does the truth 

 of this appear from the point of view of sound and broad instruction, 

 but quite as impressively in connection with research. The living organ- 

 isms of the two great oceans are by no means identical. To the student 

 who turns his face from the Atlantic to the Pacific feeling that the 

 New England or New Jersey shore has become somewhat trite and 

 habitual, there is a fresh inspiration and enthusiasm to be derived 

 from the coast of California or Vancouver. 



One very distinct advantage enjoyed by a west coast station is the 

 surpassing interest of the journey by which it is reached from a mid- 

 continental or eastern point. AVhile the tourist from Chicago to New 

 York or Boston finds the journey swift and luxurious, he is passing 

 tlirough a relatively monotonous and uninteresting country. It is quite 

 otherwise with the traveler from Minneapolis to Port Eenfrew. In esti- 

 naating the advantages of the Minnesota Seaside Station as an outpost of 

 natural science and nature-study, there must certainly be taken into ac- 

 count not only its own immediate environment, but the route by which 

 it is most conveniently reached from an eastern city. The journey over 

 the Canadian Pacific, made in special cars and with the privilege of 

 stopping at will, cannot be paralleled elsewhere on the continent. From 

 the forest of central Minnesota the train speeds on through illimitable 

 wheat-fields billowing and shimmering from horizon to horizon. It 

 clim1)s from the valley of the Eed river out upon the vast and lonely 



