SKETCH OF WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS. 403 



son, K. Mitsukiiri, A. F. W. Scliimper, 11. H. Donaldson, H. L. 

 Osborn, J. McKeen Cattell, H. H. Howell, A. T. Bruce, E. S. Lee, 

 H. F. Nachtrieb, W. Is^oyes, J. Jastrow, E. B. Mall, H. V. Wilson, 

 C. E. Hodge, S. Watase, and T. H. Morgan. Like C. O. Whitman, 

 in 1879, he did not enter upon the privileges of that position, but as 

 instructor and associate became at once a guiding element in the 

 new growth. In the freedom from old traditions, from fixed con- 

 ventions and routines offered by this new university, this peculiar 

 original mind found its best environment, and while the opportunity 

 doubtless did much for the man, the man certainly reacted most 

 favorably for the weKare of the highest ideals of his new home. 



We find him at once outspoken in emphasis of the philosophical 

 aspect of animal morphology, contributing thoughts upon " induc- 

 tive reasoning in morphological problems," upon " the relation be- 

 tween embryology and phylogeny," upon " the causes of serial and 

 bilateral symmetry," and upon the " rhythmic nature " of the cleav- 

 age of an ego^. Yet this period was also, and pre-eminently, one 

 of acquisition of hard-earned and detailed facts. The development 

 of Pulmonates and Lamellibranchs, of Crustacea and of Medusas, as 

 well as of the marvels of Salpa's life history, became absorbing 

 studies. 



This great field of the morphology of nonvertebrates could be 

 properly worked only with access to the marine fauna, and at that 

 date there were few facilities for seaside study in America. A true 

 disciple of Louis Agassiz, Professor Brooks saw the need of a ma- 

 rine laboratory, and devoted himself, as Dohrn did at Naples, to the 

 accomplishment of an end so necessary for the advance of natural 

 science. Encouraged by the aid of a few citizens of Baltimore, in 

 1878 there was started an experiment — " The Chesapeake Zoologi- 

 cal Laboratory," at Fort Wool, Va., with Professor Brooks as 

 director. With the absolute devotion of its director to research 

 as example, and mth the liberal aid of the trustees of the Johns 

 Hopkins University, this laboratory became a most important ad- 

 junct to the university and a virile center of zoological study. So 

 great was its success as a factor in the advance of zoological knowl- 

 edge that the trustees bravely continued to support it whenever 

 financial disaster did not rob them of the last penny. For eight 

 years in the Chesapeake, or in the remoter waters of I^orth Caro- 

 lina, the station flourished; then, in 1886, we find the director, with 

 a few enthusiastic students, venturing in a small schooner to the 

 but little known Bahama Island, Green Turtle Cay, there to en- 

 large their experiences with such delightful realization of natu- 

 ralists' dreams of the tropics as Haeckel experienced in his Journey 

 to Ceylon. Subsequent annual expeditions to Nassau, the Bemini 



