70 Millport Mai'ine Biological Station. [Sess. 



now assistant to Professor J. Graham Kerr in Glasgow Univer- 

 sity, was engaged at the Station in preparing and mounting 

 type specimens of the more important groups of marine animals, 

 for teaching or exhibition purposes. Numerous sets of these 

 specimens were presented to schools, the cost being met from 

 a fund generously provided for that purpose by Mr James 

 Coats, jun., of Ferguslie. 



So rapidly did the work of the Station increase, that in a 

 very few years after it was erected an extension of the 

 buildings was felt to be necessary. The ground on which the 

 Station stands was given by the late Marquis of Bute at a 

 merely nominal feu-duty, and it was hoped that more ground 

 could be got from the present Marquis. It was found, how- 

 ever, that the terms of the late Marquis's will preclude the 

 feuing, or otherwise alienating, any part of the island, so that 

 the extensions of the Station buildings had to be confined to 

 the ground already secured. These extensions have now been 

 made, with very satisfactory results. Besides a new house 

 for the Curator, special research-rooms have been fitted up ; 

 an additional Laboratory, with tables for forty students, has 

 been provided ; while workers, male and female, can now be 

 boarded at the Station, within certain limits as to numbers, 

 instead of finding accommodation elsewhere, as heretofore. 

 Some idea of the extent of these additions may be gathered 

 from the fact that the frontage of the Station buildings is now 

 104 feet, while formerly it was only 30 feet.-^ 



It is rather unfortunate that what would have proved a 

 most interesting feature of the extended buildings has had to 

 be given up for want of space. This was a room adjoining 

 the Library, to be fitted up with tanks for keeping live 

 animals. The glass vessels in the Museum for this purpose 

 were felt to be a failure, and in the Curator's Eeport for 1901 

 it was stated that " a set of large glass-fronted tanks, having 



1 The ceremony of formally inaugurating the extended premises took place on 

 Sept. 27, 1904, when Lord Provost Sir John Ure Primrose, Honorary President 

 of the Association, addressed a large company of ladies and gentlemen gathered 

 in the new Laboratory of the Station. Dr J. F. Gemmill, President of the 

 Association, who also spoke, said that "the extensions were practically the gift 

 of Mr James Coats, Ferguslie ; and it was an open secret that if circumstances 

 of lease had allowed them, his generosity would have been equal to much greater 

 extensions." 



