MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 251 



for scientific exploration of an interesting and important 

 nature, such as the Prince of Monaco is now doing. 



There are two practices in American universities which 

 excite the envy of professors in this country. One is the 

 " sabbatical year" — the one year in every seven given for 

 purposes of travel, study, and investigation. The other 

 is the frequent endowment of an expedition — or equipment 

 of an exploring party — by an individual man or woman 

 who is interested in the subject, and can give a special 

 fund for such a purpose. The Columbia University in 

 New York, the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, 

 Yale College in Newhaven, and Harvard at Cambridge, 

 have all benefitted immensely in the past by such explor- 

 ing expeditions. Nearly every year of late has seen one 

 or more of such, due to private generosity, in the field ; 

 and the work they have done has both added to general 

 scientific knowledge, and has also enriched with collections 

 the laboratories and museums of the college to which the 

 expedition belonged. 



It may be that the reason why this excellent system of 

 exploring parties from the universities has attained such 

 slight development in our country is that our professors 

 are not so enterprising in making known the wants of 

 science — not so importunate in their demands upon the 

 community in which they live — as their transatlantic 

 brethren. It may be that some think that in this long- 

 settled country there is nothing left to explore — no 

 greater mistake could be made. I am sure that the 

 geologist and the archaeologist could point to innumerable 

 problems still to be attacked on land, while our seas are 

 far more vast, and comparatively far less known than 

 the shores. I am sure?) that many marine zoologists 

 could be usefully employed during their vacation for 

 the next ten years in exploring such regions as I have 



