1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 357 



Jamaica as a Tropical Marine Biological Station. 



In America, at any rate, they appreciate the value of extended 

 acquaintance with facts, and for some years Professor W. K. Brooks 

 has realised the importance to his students of taking an extra course of 

 laboratory work at some more tropical centre. For this object Professor 

 Brooks has given the preference to Jamaica on account of the more 

 typical and varied conditions of both its marine and terrestial life. 

 According to his experience, the Bahamas may be superior for a 

 study of the fascinating life of the coral-reef, but, for the requirements 

 of a more general training, Jamaica is perhaps better adapted. In 

 1891, the first party of students, with Professor Brooks at their head, 

 made a three months' stay at Port Henderson, close to Kingston ; in 

 1893 a second party under Dr. Bigelow did the same; and only 

 recently a third party, consisting of Messrs. Conant, Clark, and 

 Sudler, accompanied by Professor Brooks, have spent three months 

 at the same place. The visit of these students is not entirely confined 

 to laboratory work, but exploration and collection from the more im- 

 portant places in the island has been systematically carried out. At 

 the invitation of the Board of Governors of the Institute of Jamaica, 

 a special meeting of the members of the institute was held in the 

 lecture room, and the members of the Johns Hopkins University 

 Marine Laboratory then stationed at Port Henderson gave an 

 account of the work performed by them on the fauna of Jamaica. Mr. 

 Conant discussed the chaetognaths, or arrow worms ; Mr. Clark, the 

 holothurians, or sea cucumbers ; and Mr. Sudler, the crustacean 

 genus, Lucifer. The Institute of Jamaica has not been slow in recog- 

 nising the value to the island of the work carried out by the Johns 

 Hopkins students, and has placed itself in close communication with 

 the university, and, in return for the assistance afforded, the institute 

 obtains the valuable help of Professor Brooks and his students in 

 naming specimens in the museum, and in receiving valuable duplicates 

 of the treasures collected by the workers. The governors of the 

 institute also realise that it would be of value to zoology generally 

 if some scheme could be devised for holding vacation biological 

 sessions at Kingston ; anyone desirous of obtaining further informa- 

 tion may apply to Mr. J. E. Duerden, the curator. At the close of 

 the special meeting referred to above, Mr. Duerden commented on 

 the extraordinarily complete course of instruction received by the 

 Johns Hopkins students, and pointed out that after four years' general 

 course at the university, the students usually gave from tliree to five 

 years to research work, from which he hoped that Jamaica would 

 receive a considerable and lasting benefit. 



Teaching Physiography. 



We are are glad to observe that the Science and Art Department 

 has taken the subject "Physiography" in hand, and if it has 



