MAEINE ZOOLOGY IX THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC. 47 



that no biologist familiar with either one of these situations has ever 

 studied at the other: 



Concerning the scope and auspices of the laboratory all the 

 correspondents are agreed that it should be national in character, and 

 that every possible aid should be given to all competent students, both 

 in the prosecution of their studies and in the publication of results. 



Although a tropical laboratory may well remain open during the 

 entire year, the most available months for study are May 1 to August 

 1. This is the period of calms, which follows the trade wind period 

 of the winter and precedes the hurricane season of the autumn. Dur- 

 ing late spring and early summer months one may safely go out to sea 

 in small sail boats, and may wade and collect on the windward sides 

 of the reefs, an advantage rarely enjoyed during the winter, when the 

 almost constant trade wind lashes the ocean into foam. There is yet 

 another advantage gained by selecting the summer months for study, 

 for this is the period when numerous larvas and young forms appear; 

 and few realize who have not been there that there is almost as much 

 difEerence between the fauna of summer and winter in the tropical 

 ocean as there is along our own temperate shores. With the exception 

 of the Siphonophoras, almost all forms of pelagic life are much more 

 numerous in spring and summer than during the winter months. 

 These remarks apply especially to the Tortugas and Bahamas, where 

 the calm period is well marked. 



This appeal for this laboratory may seem to some to be worthy of 

 but little attention; for abstract laws and facts having little or no 

 bearing upon the practical things of life would chiefly concern its 

 thought, but who may dare to predict the outcome of the study of 

 pure science? Polarized light by means of which we now analyze our 

 sugars, the principles underlying the working of the dynamo, telegraph 

 and telephone; the great law of evolution and the germ theory of dis- 

 ease were all discovered and made known by men who had in mind 

 only the advancement of the sum of human knowledge totally apart 

 from practical results or the acquisition of wealth. Our national 

 progress vast in material has been insignificant in abstract science, 

 yet imderlying all practical applications are the laws which men who 

 have studied nature for the simple- love of her ways have found. Too 

 much of our energy is withdrawn from the study of cardinal princi- 

 ples, and too much devoted to the application of established laws to 

 the serving of mere practical ends. Let us have at least one labora- 

 tory devoted exclusively to research in science, both pure and applied, 

 and let its course be free from criticism if it be so fortunate as to 

 lead to the discovery of laws even if no money be made thereby. 



