72 TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 



Mr. de Ravenel: I am obliged to leave in a few minutes to 

 go to Buffalo, but I want to say I heartily indorse what has 

 been said by both Dr. Parker and Mr. Clark in reference to 

 Dr. Reighard's paper. There is no question at all. if we expect 

 to get the best results from fish culture, we must bring in 

 the biologist, and we must study thoroughly the conditions 

 that surround the animals that we are attempting to preserve 

 and propagate. In regard to the general lines Dr. Reighard 

 has laid down, I must say frankly as a practical man that 

 the expense involved in carrying them out would be very 

 large, and I am afraid unless we make a much more modest 

 start that it would be difficult to get Congress to enact the 

 needed legislation. The cost of a vessel like the Albatross 

 would be up in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the 

 establishment of a complete biological laboratory and aqua- 

 rium would make the cost of such a station a hundred thou- 

 sand dollars. I am not speaking recklessly on that question. 

 Your ordinary biological stations cost from forty to fifty thou- 

 sand dollars without any of these attachments. I think that I 

 am within bounds in saying that the Woods Hole station cost 

 from sixty to eighty thousand dollars. I would like to ask Mr. 

 Bowers if he knows about that. 



Mr, Bowers: From sixtj- to eighty thousand dollars. 



Mr. de Ravenel : I think, then, we would have to start off in 

 rather a modest way, but in such a way that we can develop 

 as the time goes by. I hope Professor Reighard will keep this 

 matter agitated and that we will in a few years see a biolog- 

 ical station established on some of the Great Lakes. 



Mr. Titcomb: 1 wall inquire of Mr. Reighard is he thinks a 

 resolution of this Society, indorsing such a movement, would 

 be of any special assistance. 



Secretary Whitaker: We did indorse it last year. The mat- 

 ter was brought up and received the warm and hearty indorse- 

 ment of the Society. It was quite fully discussed at the last 

 session, and I do not think the Society has changed its mind 

 since that time. 



So far as the practical side of this question is concerned, 

 my views were expressed very fully a year ago. The Pro- 

 fessor well knows that Michigan undertook to do something 

 of this kind, to investigate the conditions of plankton and 

 of the larger forms of life in the Great Lakes, and also of 

 their flora so far as that subject was related to the food 

 fish and their supply of food. What we had in mind at that 

 time was, of course, on very much narrower lines than is pro- 

 posed in the Professor's paper, because of the very thing that 

 has been suggested here — the lack of means would not warrant 

 anything of that kind. I think that anv one who has been 



