DEPARTMENT OF MARINE BIOLOGY * 



Alfred G. Mayer, Director. 



The single object of the Tortugas Laboratory is to develop the new field 

 of the intensive study of the life of the tropical ocean. No research which 

 has yet been published or is in process of publication from Tortugas could 

 have been performed in any laboratory in the temperate regions, and this 

 will be the fixed policy of the Institution, for its aim is to supplement and 

 extend, not to rival, the effective efforts in research which are being exerted 

 by other laboratories. To so conduct the station as to lead to an actual in- 

 crease in the output and an improvement in the quality of research is by no 

 means so simple a matter as it might appear, and each year some good 

 worker is advised to go to Woods Hole or some other laboratory to conduct 

 a research for the prosecution of which other places afford advantages equal 

 to or better than those of Tortugas. 



The laboratory has constantly aimed to discover the most able students 

 and to urge them to conduct researches under its auspices, and it is flattering 

 to see that the interest now aroused among our active investigators has be- 

 come so great that this year the laboratory found itself too small to afford 

 room for several competent students of marine life who applied for its tables. 



Each year the equipment of the laboratory has been improved, and now it 

 is evident that its capacity must be enlarged so that it may afford the best 

 possible facilities for at least 15 students each summer. With this in view 

 a new building designed to serve as a shed for the shipways and for sleep- 

 ing quarters for the sailors was constructed. This would have permitted us 

 to convert the old sailors' quarters into a laboratory room, but unfortunately 

 the hurricane of October 17, 1910, destroyed this old building, thus delaying 

 the perfecting of our plans. The new building, however, remains intact and 

 will be occupied. 



This necessity for enlargement opens before us the problem of the future 

 development of the station in order that it may maintain an active and in- 

 creasingly efficient leadership in the development of research in science. 

 We must constantly bear the fact in mind that no laboratory in so unpro- 

 tected a situation as that of Tortugas can profitably be maintained open 

 during the winter months, when an almost constant trade-wind gale renders 

 it impossible to collect upon the reefs. During the early years of his ex- 

 perience as an explorer of tropical seas Alexander Agassiz's reports are all 

 prefaced with complaints that his expeditions labored under great disad- 



* Situated at Tortugas, Florida. Grant No. 604. $14,570 for investigations and main- 

 tenance during 1910. (For previous reports see Year Books Nos. 3-8.) 



117 



