590.7(7) 28 [July 



II. 



A California!! Marine Biological Station. 



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VHE European zoologist who visited the Pacific states would be 

 very apt to find his way to the old Spanish-Calif ornian town 

 of Monterey, and to the Marine Laboratory of the Leland Stanford 

 Junior University. As this station, however, seems to the present 

 writer surprisingly little known in proportion to its deserts, a brief 

 account of its equipment and surroundings may prove of interest to 

 the readers of Natural Science. 



This at the present time is the only permanent biological station 

 on the American side of the Pacific. Temporary stations have 

 indeed been established within recent years. The University of 

 California has several times carried on a seaside school of zoology, 

 both at Pacific Grove near Monterey, and on the Santa Catalina 

 Islands in the region of Santa Barbara. Further northward, in 

 Puget Sound, Washington, a local society, that of the Young 

 Naturalists of Seattle, has done excellent faunal work during its 

 camping seasons ; and in the same region during last summer 

 Columbia University of New York established a laboratory at Port 

 Townsend. 



The Stanford, or the Hopkins Laboratory, as it is called, is both 

 an annexe and an integral part of its university. It was, indeed, 

 contemplated as 'early as the time of the building of the university, 

 when it was decided that a portion of the studies in zoology and 

 botany might be carried on during the summer, the students to be 

 given the regular credit for their work as in the winter courses. 

 It was, accordingly, with a summer laboratory in view, that in 1891 

 two of the Stanford professors, Drs 0. P. Jenkins and C. H. Gilbert, 

 visited the region of Monterey (which had indeed been known to 

 Dr Gilbert previously during his studies on the fishes of the Pacific), 

 and made a reconnaissance to determine the particular point of the 

 bay which was best suited to the needs of the collector and investi- 

 gator. The site they then determined upon was at Pacific Grove, a 

 few miles westward of Monterey. Here, in the first place were 

 found most favourable fields for collecting. The shores were 

 unshifting, the coast was rugged, while huge rock masses and bluffs 

 alternated with sheltered harbours and beaches, rich in forms of 

 animals and seaweed life. The locality seemed also a particularly 

 convenient one on account of its facilities for the lodging and living 



