42 T^i'ciify-si.vfJi Annual Meeting 



devote itself exchisively to the solution of practical problems. Its 

 workers shoukl be left free' to devclcjp each in accordance with his 

 own bent. Thus will the institution be most efficient; thus will 

 knowledge be most rapidly widened, and thus, too, will practical 

 problems, soonest reach their final solution. Fin.al solution of sucii 

 problems depends on fulness of knowledge, and fulness of knowl- 

 edge is not to be attained by an investigation directed narrowly 

 toward the solution of a practical problem. 



The station at Plon has been followed by others in different 

 parts of Europe. One of these, that on the Mugelersee, near 

 Berlin, has been founded and is conducted entirely in the interest 

 of the fisheries. Investigations have further beeiT undertaken of 

 Lake Constance and of Lake Geneva. 



Stations have also been established in this country. That on 

 Gull Lake, started by the LTniversity of Minnesota, was in exist- 

 ence for but one year. It seems to have Ijeen the first of its sort 

 in this country, but I do not know that any results of importance 

 have come from its establishment. The station maintained by 

 the Michigan hlsh Commission on Lake St. Clair in 1893, and 

 on Lake Michigan in 1894, was the next in (jrder of time. The 

 results of its work have been embodied in five bulletins issued 

 by the Michigan Fish Commission. In 1895 there was estab- 

 lished by the L'niversity of Illinois a fresh water biological sta- 

 tion, of a purely scientific character. It has now completed its 

 second year of work, under the directorship of Professor Forbes, 

 and several valuable papers have come from it. The uniciue 

 location of this station and its excellent facilities lead us to expect 

 much from it. In the meantime there has been established a 

 sununtr station on 'furkev Lake, huliana, in connection with the 

 University of Indiana, and several papers have already appeared 

 from it. 



A second characteristic of the work on our fresh waters has 

 been the introduction since 1890 of exact methods. The (fresh 

 water) biologist aims at a physiology of organisms. He desires 

 to measure, count, and weigh the animals and plants of a given 

 area, and to deternnne their food relations to one another. By 

 such means he h(^pes to be able to trace continuously and quanti- 

 tatively the transfcM-mations of matter from the int^rganic con- 

 stituents of the soil through the bodies of plant and animal and 

 back again to the soil. The difficulties in the way of such an 

 accomplishment are insuperable in the case of terrestrial ]ilants 

 and animals in a state of nature. Idie enumeration alone of the 

 plants and animals of a single acre of wild land is an impossibility, 



