12 TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF SCIENTIFIC WORK AT 

 WOODS HOLE. 



BY PROFESSOR HERMON C. BUMPUS. 



In this paper it will be our purpose to describe only those 

 methods which have been more recently adopted at the marine 

 laboratory of the United States Fish Commission, and to note 

 only those results of scientific work Avhich have a distinctly 

 economic bearing. 



It will be remembered that in 1884 Professor Baird saw the 

 completion of the station, the largest, and in many ways the 

 most thoroughly equipped, plant for the observation of marine 

 life in the world. During the summers of 1884-6 the entire 

 department was transferred from Washington to Woods Hole. 

 The rooms in the Residence were filled with executive officers, 

 men of science, and clerical assistants; the laboratories were 

 occupied by such investigators as Professor A. E. Verrill, Sid- 

 ney I. Smith and W. S. Faxon; and the entire fleet of the Com- 

 mission was busy in carrying on those lines of exploration 

 which made the work of the United States Fish Commission 

 the pattern for other nations to follow. But as the laboratory 

 at Penikese profited by the directorship of Louis Agassiz for 

 only one season the station at Woods Hole enjoyed the director- 

 ship of its founder only a brief period. During the years that 

 immediately followed the death of Professor Baird, the station 

 gave less and less attention to scientific work, until in 1897 the 

 laboratories were actually closed. During the period of waning 

 scientific activity, the station passed through all the stages of 

 material decay. Not only were the laboratories deserted and 

 the scientific equipment destroyed, but the buildings became 

 unoccupied, the vessels of the commission seldom made their 

 appearance, and the wharves and basins reached a stage of dis- 

 integration wherein they were picturesque but of little practi- 

 cal value. In the meantime the work of fish-hatching had con- 

 tinued, but only along the old lines and in the perfunctory way 

 that prevails for those who take no vital interest in their work. 

 I believe that the history of the Woods Hole Station during 

 its dark ages of scientific inactivity will be the history of every 



