A MARINE BIOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY. 463 



will indorse the opinion that American biology would profit im- 

 mensely more on the basis I have suggested than it could through 

 any plan that would divide forces and build up weak college de- 

 pendencies. Moreover, the individual interests of every institu- 

 tion in the country that maintains a biological department would 

 be most economically and efficiently provided for in the same 

 way. The interests of biologists, biological schools, and the sci- 

 ence at large, all coincide in this matter, and each emphasizes and 

 re-enforces the same verdict. Here we stand on principles that 

 are too obvious, as it seems to me, to fail of commanding general 

 assent. 



This point dismissed, the task of finding a plan acceptable to 

 all remains. Does any one of the marine laboratories now in ex- 

 istence afford a suitable vantage-ground for united action ? This 

 is a delicate matter to handle while rival schemes are afloat. 

 But the question may at once be stripped of most of its difficulties 

 by simply ruling out all schemes proposed in the interest of any 

 particular institution and based on local organization. No disap- 

 probation is intended for any one of these ; they may all be use- 

 ful and worthy of encouragement ; but if they declare themselves 

 organized under the auspices of some university or college, as 

 most of them do, they certainly can make no just pretension to 

 being national in aim and scope, and hence do not appeal to our 

 highest need. And so, while wishing them all every possible 

 success, we invite them to co-operate in a broader undertaking 

 which will in no way encroach upon their private ground, but 

 which, on the contrary, may extend and supplement their work, 

 while sustaining facilities that are beyond their reach. Some of 

 these laboratories, perhaps all of them, have offered their privi- 

 leges to investigators from the outside, and it is to be hoped that 

 they will continue to do so, for this forms an important part of 

 the co-operation which a general observatory would invite and 

 profit by. 



The proposal recently made for the establishment of a biologi- 

 cal observatory at Jamaica under the auspices of the British Gov- 

 ernment, aided by private subscription, is one to be strongly com- 

 mended. Such an observatory would bring many important ad- 

 vantages to American as well as English biologists, and it might 

 well be an internationalestablishment. A national observatory on 

 our coast, such as we have looked forward to, would find in a sta- 

 tion at Jamaica an invaluable adjunct to its facilities, and might 

 be expected not only to avail itself of its advantages, but also to 

 lend it such support as its means might permit. The plan is in no 

 way a rival or a substitute for the one already under way at 

 Woods Holl. It would make no provision for instruction either 

 for students or for beginners in investigation ; its work would be 



