TENTH LECTURE. 



THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATIONS OF EUROPE. 



P.ASIIFORI) DEAN, 



Columbia CuLLiicu, New Yokk. 



Among European nations the Marine Laboratory has long 

 been- recognized as an important aid to the advancement of 

 biological studies. Groups of universities, centralizing their 

 marine work in convenient localities, have caused the entire 

 coast line of Europe to become dotted with stations, well 

 equipped and well maintained. Societies, individuals and not 

 infrequently governments contribute to their support. 



Marine stations have become distributing centers, important 



equally in every grade of biological work or training. A 



student, for example, should he visit a small university in the 



interior of France, would receive his first lessons aided 



by material sent regularly from Roscoff or Banyuls : — he 



would examine living sponges, pennatulids, heroes, hydroids, 



Loxosoma, Comatula, Amphioxus. Or, at Munich, remote 



from the coast, as in the laboratory of Prof. Richard Hertwig, 



he is enabled by means of material from Naples to demonstrate 



the larval characters of ascidians, or the fertilization processes 



of the sea-urchin. During his winter studies the marine 



station would thus provide him with the best material — 



sometimes preserved and well fixed, sometimes living, to be 



prepared according to his wants. In summer it affords him 



the best opportunities to see and collect his study types, without 



physical discomforts and with the greatest economy of time. 



To the investigator the station has become, in the broadest 



sense, a university. He may there meet the representative 



students of far and wide, fellow-workers perhaps in the very 



