DIRECTOR'S REPORT.—NO. III. XXVii 
to lower when sailing close to the wind. She can now very often 
do her day’s work with a considerable gain in time, bringing up 
material quicker, and hence fresher and earlier in the day. 
The export of living animals is proving more and more successful 
as experience is gained, and it is increasing in importance. Members 
of the Association living inland can generally obtain a supply of sea- 
water by rail once or twice a year, and with a few simple precautions 
it can be used to keep alive marine animals and plants sent from Ply- 
mouth, some of which,—sea-anemones, for instance,—will live for 
years ; others could be replaced at intervals as they die. Larvee of 
Crustacea could be watched as they pass through their metamorphoses, 
for Aminifera could be kept alive and their growth observed, and no 
doubt many new and interesting facts would be collected by means 
of a little application and study of such animals in small aquaria. 
I have been able to remedy a serious defect in the arrangements 
for supplying sea-water to the Laboratory. During the month of 
August it was noticed that the water pumped up was not fit to use, 
and it was not allowed to pass into the circulation. It had been proved 
a short. time previously that the water obtained in the same way 
was quite as good as water from the Channel for rearing Fora- 
minifera. The abnormal condition persisted for a time and then 
disappeared and reappeared, until at last a dead fish was pumped, 
and then a large piece of fucus, and so on. 
Appearances pointed to a defect in the supply pipe which runs 
out from the base of the rocks below the Laboratory for ‘a distance 
of fifty yards and lies on the sea-bottom. A diver went down to 
inspect and soon reported that the iron pipe was broken across near 
the outer end, and that the near end was buried in mud. I decided 
to repair the pipe at once, and as the weather permitted, it was put 
right in three days, the broken length of pipe removed, the lengths 
of the detached portion taken off one by one and connected with the 
shore end, and on the upturned end of the last length the large rose 
was replaced. Still for three weeks the water pumped up had 
something unusual about its smell and appearance, and at last the 
dead body of an eel, four feet long, which must have been shut in 
the pipe by the diver, came up. Since this time (20th September) 
the water has come up clear and fresh, and a state of affairs which 
may have lasted a couple of years or more, has come to an end. 
The probability is that the anchor of some ship caught the pipe 
and fractured it ; the difficulty is to explain the presence of a vessel 
large enough to do the damage so close to the shore (thirty yards). 
Maybe the great storm of March, 1891, is to to blame for this ; the 
wind blew off-shore for some time, and a vessel so close to the rocks 
would not have been in immediate danger. 
