THE ZOOLOGICAL STATIOX AT NAPLES 223 



be searched with dredge and trawl and fished with long lines, each 

 bearing man}* baited hooks, and the pelagic animals caught from the 

 side of the vessel. Small boats would be sent out to gather from the 

 rocks and grottoes under the water-line such organisms as the sponges, 

 corals, worms, echinoderms, mollusks and algae. A portion of the 

 catch would be examined by the naturalists on board, another part kept 

 in well aerated aquaria to be taken in the early morning by the 

 Johannes Mutter to the Naples Station. In the night-time silk tow- 

 nets would collect from the vast numbers of minute living things that 

 then reappear after having gone below the surface waters to escape the 

 intense sunlight. Stone-plates could be lowered to the sea-bottom in 

 various places to be taken up and examined at regular intervals in 

 order to study the assembling and growth of the sessile organisms that 

 seek such locations. Then these stone-plates might be changed from 

 one place to another, varying the depth, light and other conditions of 

 existence in accord with the method of experimental zoology, with re- 

 sults of the greatest value to the knowledge of the distribution and 

 evolution of marine organisms and scarcely possible except by means 

 of such a floating laboratory. After exjrdoring the sea around Naples 

 the floating laboratory might be taken to the coasts of Sardinia, Tunis, 

 Crete, Cyprus and other regions. The moment anchor is cast the vessel 

 serves as dwelling house and laboratory from which would center all 

 the activities of a marine station. If needed, a portable house, carried 

 on board, could be quickly placed upon any desired shore. In connec- 

 tion with biology other kinds of scientific work such as geology, paleon- 

 tology and philology might be advanced, with the best possible conserva- 

 tion of all the collections on board the ship, whereas it is often so diffi- 

 cult and dangerous to transport such things from isolated regions by the 

 ordinarily available means. It is easily seen that such a combination 

 would greatly advance the various sciences concerned at the least cost to 

 each. This plan, always in Dohrn's mind, was temporarily laid in the 

 background by the more pressing need of the erection of the building 

 for comparative physiology which absorbed much time in the last years 

 of Dohrn's life. Through the death of F. A. Krupp his promise to 

 build a 700-ton yacht for this deep sea investigation came to naught. 

 Now, although the Prince of Monaco is devoting much time and money 

 to the development of oceanography, and various governments are send- 

 ing out vessels, yet the field is so large and so important that it is to be . 

 hoped Dohrn's plan will be carried out not alone at Naples, but in 

 America and other countries. 



In spite of the time consumed in directing the affairs of the zoolog- 

 ical station and in traveling and making addresses in its behalf, Dohrn 

 was always an investigator of the foremost rank. During the half- 

 century of continuous production his bibliography numbers eighty 

 titles. Following in the footsteps of his father, the entomologist Karl 



