THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATIONS OF EUROPE.* 



By Bashford Dean, 



Columbia College, New York. 



Among" European nations the marine laboratory lias long been rec 

 ognized as an important aid to the advancement of biological studies. 

 Groups of universities, centralizing their marine work in convenient 

 localities, have caused the entire coastline of Europe to become dotted 

 with stations, well equipped and well maintained. Societies, individu- 

 als, and not infrequently governments contribute to their supi^ort. 



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 Roscoft'or Ban 

 yuls; he would examine living sponges, peimatulids, 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 dis- 

 comforts 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 line of his own research, and must himself unknow- 

 ingly teach and learn. He finds out gradually of recent work, of 

 technical methods which often happen most pertinent to his needs. 

 He carries on his work quietly and thoroughly; his works of reference 

 are at hand; he has the most necessary comforts in working-, and is 

 untroubled by the rigid hours of demonstrations or lectures. The sta- 

 tion becoming a literal emporium, cosmopolitan, bringing together side 

 by side the best workers of many universities, tends moreover to make 



*Iu the inain as published in the Biological Lectures, 1893, of the Woods Holl 

 Marine Lalioratoiy. (Boston: Ginn & Co.) 



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