126 REPORTS OF inve;stigations and projects. 



of earth from New Jersey were taken to Tortugas, and such of it as was not 

 required for the rearing of Solamim for Professor Tower's experiments was 

 spread over the ground in order to form a soil for the cultivation of attractive 

 flowering plants, such as Hibiscus, Bougainvillea, Poinsettia, Coleus, etc. 

 Hitherto the laboratory has been surrounded by barren shell-sands of almost 

 alabaster whiteness, the heat and glare of which rendered out-of-door excur- 

 sions most uncomfortable. We hope that in a few years the buildings may 

 be embowered in a beautiful tropical garden, for, as Professor Dohrn once 

 told me, the success of his great zoological station at Naples is in no small 

 measure due to the sublime beauty of its surroundings. The station of the 

 Tortugas Laboratory is unique in the tropics for its cleanliness and health- 

 fulness, and we shall now aim to render it equally attractive for its beauty, 

 for it is only under the best conditions of life that the best results from the 

 arduous labor of research may be obtained. 



The Tortugas Laboratory is a summer school of research where all are 

 students, for the relation of master and pupil is unknown in such a republic 

 of intellectual equality. Its simple object is to render aid to those who have 

 already displayed exceptional ability in the prosecution of research and 

 whose problems may be better studied at Tortugas than elsewhere. There 

 are indeed certain classes of problems in biology, such as those of physiology, 

 embryology, cytology, oecology, heredity, etc., which have not been attempted 

 in the tropics, for the lack of sufficient facilities, and it is the aim of the 

 Laboratory to encourage such studies rather than to lend aid to the gathering 

 of general collections of dead and preserved animals, such as have so fre- 

 quently been brought into our museums from tropical regions. But special 

 collections by trained students of certain groups of animals are encouraged, 

 for these lead to the discovery of new and interesting forms, and thus to the 

 ultimate possibility of the elucidation of laws of nature. 



The success of the Laboratory is due to no one man, but to the combined 

 labors of all those who have honored it by their devotion to its aims, and 

 therefore, after briefly reviewing the work of the present year, we will give 

 a summary of the results which have been achieved by its students during 

 these first five years of its existence. 



The following investigators studied at the Laboratory in 1909 : 



Dr. R. P. Cowles, Johns Hopkins University, June 24 to July 20. 



Mr. E. Newton Harvey, University of Pennsylvania, May 25 to July 25. 



Prof. Seth E. Meek and his assistant, Mr. William Heim, of the Field Museum, 



Chicago, May 8 to 22. 

 Prof. Henry S. Pratt, Haverford College, May 25 to June 29. 

 Prof. Charles R. Stockard, Cornell Medical College, May 12 to June 21. 

 Prof. W. L. Tower, Chicago University, May 3 to 10, July 20 to 23. 

 Prof. David H. Tennent, Bryn Mawr College, May 25 to July 20. 

 Prof. Aaron L. Treadwell, Vassar College, May 25 to July 12. 

 Dr. T. Wayland Vaughan, U. S. Geological Survey, May 2 to 22. 



