138 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



*' Acquario," in the collection and preparation of choice 

 specimens for museums, in the supply of laboratory material 

 and mounted microscopic objects to universities, in the 

 facilities afforded for research, or in the educational influence 

 and inspiration which aU young workers in the laboratory 

 feel — in each and aU of these directions the Naples station 

 has a world-wide renown. And the best proof of this 

 reputation for excellence is seen in the long list of biologists 

 from aU civilized countries who year after year obtaiu 

 material from the station or enroU as workers in the labor- 

 atory. Close on 1,500 naturalists have now, since the open- 

 ing of the zoological station in 1873, occupied work-tables, 

 and, as these men have come from and gone back to practi- 

 cally all the important laboratories of the world, Naples may 

 fairly claim to have been for the last haU-century a great 

 international meeting-ground of biologists, and so to have 

 exercised a stimulating and co-ordinating influence upon 

 marine biological and oceanographical research which it 

 would be difficult to overestimate. 



The success of the institution has caused constant additions 

 and has stimulated the staff to fresh undertakings. To the 

 original aquarium and zoological laboratories a second build- 

 ing mainly for botany and physiology and the preparation of 

 specimens was soon added ; and a third has since been com- 

 pleted. Additional accommodation has also been obtained by 

 a rearrangement of the roof of the main building. This gives 

 space for a second large zoological laboratory, a supplement- 

 ary library and various smaller rooms, used as chemical and 

 physiological laboratories, for photography and for bacteri- 

 ology. A good deal of the research in recent years, both on 

 the part of those occupying work-tables and of the permanent 

 staff, has been in the direction of comparative physiology, 

 experimental embryology and the bacteriology of sea-water, 

 and all necessary facilities for such work are now provided. 



The laboratories contain accommodation for over fifty 

 scientific men to work, and each such work-place, ^known 



