112 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



THE JOHNS HOPKINS BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 



W. S. WINDLE. 



For the past fifteen years it has been customary for the members of the 

 biological department of Johns Hopkins University to devote their summer 

 vacations to pursuing their studies upon tho sea shore, where living marine 

 animal forms may be secured for daily use. 



The Johns Hopkins Marine Laboratory, as the organization is called, is 

 under the direction of Prof. W. K. Brooks, and has been confined to no per- 

 manent location, but has been moved about fi*om place to place as the 

 wishes of those most intei'ested demanded. The work of many seasons was 

 devoted to the study of forms found in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. 

 For six years the laboratory was stationed at Beaufort, N. C. Then three 

 summers were spent in the waters which bathe the shores of the Bahamas; 

 Green Turtle and Binning islands having been chosen as stations for bio- 

 logical research. Finally the organization went as far south as the island 

 of Jamaica, upon the coast of which it has spent two seasons. 



The site of the present marine laboratory is Port Henderson, a private 

 seaport on the south side of the island. It >s a quaint eld village of a dozen 

 buildings or more, used as a seaside resort for Jamaicans of leisure and 

 wealth. A more attractive and suitable spot in that vicinity couldnot have 

 been found for onr party of seven. 



In the immediate rear of the village Salt Pond Hill vises abruptly to a 

 height of 1,000 feet or more, and upon its highest point are the ruins of an 

 old stone fort known as Rodney's Lookout. Here, in the early days of 

 pirates and buccaneers. Admiral Rodney had his stronghold, whence he 

 could look out upon the harbor and open sea and detect the approach of 

 hostile visitors. From the verandah of our laboratory, which was within a 

 stone's throw of the sea, we were afforded a grand view of Kingston Harbor, 

 in which the entire fleet of the English navy might anchor with safety. To 

 the north of the village the low sandy beach extends past the village of fish- 

 ermen's cabins, and beyond old Fort Augusta to the Rio Cobra I'iver. Across 

 the harbor, four miles away, Kingston, the capital of the island, appears in 

 dim outline. Across the neck of the harbor, two miles to the southeast, the 

 old town of Port Royal stands upon the end of a low, narrow promontory, 

 known as the Pallisadoes. To the south the shore rises rapidly to form a 

 steep, rocky and dangerous coast. Between this coast and the pallisadoes, 

 the harbor opens out into the deep waters of the Caribbean Sea. The beau- 

 tiful landscape stretched out thus before us was completed, from an artist's 



