52 



M\ 



100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 



Do-Re-Mi houses on the left, circa 1929. Photograph by Matthew Steiner, MBL Archives. 



the isotope room so as not to contaminate them, but many of their 

 laboratories were on the much cooler north side of the building. People 

 obtained shockingly unexpected results until someone finally noted that it 

 was the five or more degrees Fahrenheit of difference in control and 

 experimental samples, due to the sun, that was producing the unexpected 

 variations. It took quite a bit of wasted research during that time to teach 

 some of the enthusiastic isotope physiologists to take better care in con- 

 trolling environmental factors. The new buildings have solved many of the 

 most obvious problems while maintaining tlie characteristic unpretentious 

 MBL style. 



They have also managed to avoid the fire hazai'ds that characterized 

 the early wooden buildings. MBL worker Robert Kahler recalled a time 

 when he was a boy and his family was returning from a picnic. They saw 

 men on a roof pulling on a hose reel and trying to put out a dramatic fire 

 in tlie bain belonging to Columbia University embiyologist Thomas Hunt 

 Morgan, which was located on a lot down Buzzards Bay Sti'eet from the 



