146 ^ 



100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 



Collecting methods, revolutionized by the introduction of scuba diving. MBL Archives. 



"make fast" had rather escaped his landlubber vocabulary. He said he knew 

 that a line was the shortest distance between two points and that he had 

 better do something quickly, but it took him a while to make any further 

 sense out of such phrases. He did catch on eventually and returned to the 

 MBL yeai" upon year thereafter, much later even arriving with the help of 

 more substantial funding from the National Science Foundation. 



Others joined the department with greater expertise. Sears Crowell had 

 grown up nearby and often visited his grandparents in Woods Hole. At 

 sixteen, he hired on as "specimen boy," the one who carried the specimens 

 around in buckets to the laboratories. Then he advanced to driving tlie 

 rubbish trucks to tlie dump. Then finally he began actually collecting. One 

 of the jobs involved working with Wamsley to preserve specimens from a 

 pond next to the Martha's Vineyard golf course and walking neai' the greens; 

 the golfers never did figure out what was going on witli those stiange men 

 carrying buckets. Crowell gained experience and appreciation for tlie col- 

 lecting process, which evolved with time, becoming more efficient and 

 requiring fewer collectors as scuba diving replaced more rimdom net 

 dredging for some organisms. 



John Valois, when he took over as supply director, was accused by his 

 predecessor of spying on him and of following him around. True, but he 

 had to. Each collector had his own tricks in tlie game and kept them secret. 



