22 CARNKGIE INSTITUTION OP WASHINGTON. 



REPORTS ON I.ARGE PROJECTS. 

 DEPARTMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY. 



The subject of research in zoology was before the Executive 

 Committee at its eariiest meetings, and was under consideration for 

 nearly two years before the specific recommendations for any large 

 projects directly in charge of the Carnegie Institution were pre- 

 sented to the Board of Trustees. In Year Book No. i the special 

 advisory committee on zoology made several recommendations of a 

 broad bearing, one of them being that of establishing a permanent 

 biological laboratory as a central station for marine biology in 

 general. In the same Year Book there were printed two schemes 

 for the establishment of biological experiment stations for the study 

 of evolution — one by Dr. C. B. Davenport, who favored Cold Spring 

 Harbor, Long Island, and a second by Prof. Roswell P. Johnson, 

 who favored a protected marine shore near fresh-water ponds. The 

 "Executive Committee consulted with many experts and carefully 

 investigated the feasibility of making the Marine Biological Labo- 

 ratory, at Woods Hole, Mass., a central station. This was found to 

 be impracticable, and the Executive Committee stated in its report 

 to the Board of Trustees for 1903 that it had concluded that the 

 best mode of dealing with this important field of research was to 

 organize a Biological Experimental Department, to which could be 

 referred all questions and problems of evolution, specific differentia- 

 tion, heredity, etc. This was to include the establishment of an 

 investigating station at Cold Spring Harbor, where ground and 

 some buildings were offered, and also the establishment of a collec- 

 tion and experimental marine biological station at the Dry Tortugas. 



The above conclusions were accompanied by a recommendation 

 that the department be established and allotments made to begin the 

 work. The Board of Trustees approved the recommendations. 



The Department of Experimental Biology was organized by the 

 appointment of Dr. Charles B. Davenport as Director of the Station 

 for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, 

 and Dr. Alfred G. Mayer as Director of the Marine Biological Lab- 

 oratory at the Dry Tortugas, Florida. 



A grant of $34,250 was made to the station at Cold Spring Har- 

 bor, and of $20,000 to the Marine Biological Laboratory at the Dry 

 Tortugas. 



The reports of the directors follow. 



