1-2 EDWARD VII. SESSIONAL PAPER No. 22a A. 1902 



MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION OF CANADA. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES ON ITS FOUNDATION, AIMS AND WORK, 

 BY THE DIRECTOR (PROFESSOR E. E. PRINCE.) 



The founding of the Canadian Marine Biological Station under Government auspices 

 three years ago, may be said, without exaggeration, to mark an era in the progress of 

 science and technical research in the Dominion. 



Two primary objects were kept prominently in view by those who initiated the 

 project, viz. : — The advancement of the fisheries of the country and the interests of the 

 fishing population resident along our shores, as well as the enlargement of existing 

 knowledge on marine fishes and other living organisms in the watei's of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence and along the Atlantic coast of Canada. 



Marine investigations, it must be remembered, have been carried on in our waters by 

 Canadian and foreign workers for nearly seventy years ; but the results of the work 

 accomplished by scientiBc men, including such authorities as the late Sir William 

 Dawson, Dr. J. F. Whiteaves, Professor Ganong, and certain eminent United States 

 biologists, had a far less direct bearing upon the fisheries and fishing indu.stries than 

 would have been the case had a scientific school or Marine Biological Station existed 

 upon our shores. Other countries long ago realized this, and founded and equipped such 

 stations, where biologists have had every facility for attacking the pressing and diflBcult 

 problems of the deep-sea and inshore fisheries. 



During my first maritime tour as Dominion Commissioner of Fisheries, I was impressed 

 not only with the desirability of some thorough and systematic investigation into fish 

 life, and marine life generally, in Canadian waters, but also with the absolute necessity 

 for a laboratory, where exhaustive researches could be carried on, and adequate solutions 

 attained in regard to questions vitnlly afifecting the fisheries, and I ventured to point out 

 in my first formal report, dated October 5, 1893, addressed to the Minister of Marine 

 and Fisheries, at the time, (Sir C. H. Tupper) how urgently these matters called for 

 attention. I laid sti'ess on the scattered and limited amount of knowledge we possessed 

 on such subjects as the spawning periods and breeding areas of valuable food-fishes, and 

 the great loss of valuable fishery resources resulting annually, especially by non-utiliza- 

 tion and waste, and I called attention to the urgency of preventing this waste of valuable 

 fish-products, and of thus stimulating new fishery enterprises. The Minister was 

 forcibly impressed by some of the points I stated, and he requested me to fully report as 

 to the best means of accomplishing a systematic fisheries' survey, of improving the fish- 

 ing industries, and of creating the new enterprises to which I referred. Accordingly, in 

 1894, I prepared a special report, published in the AnnuaJ Report of the Department of 

 Marine and Fisheries, entitled : ' A Marine Scientific Station for Canada,' and I laid 

 stress on the growing interest being taken by the public in this country and in other 

 countries in biological investigations upon the conditions of life in the sea. Further, I 

 drew special attention to the peculiar richness, variety and value of the Canadian fishing 

 grounds as a field for investigation. I alluded to work carried on in the British 

 22a— 1 



