WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS 443 



But immediately he says: 



"We had found an endless source of pleasure and profit in the 

 examination of the marine animals which drifted by us in the float- 

 ing sargassum of the Gulf Stream, and we had seen for ourselves 

 what we had so often read, that the ocean is the home of animal 

 life, and that the life of the land is as nothing when compared with 

 the boundless wealth of living things in mid-ocean." 



In search of better opportunity to study the problems of floating 

 life in the ocean, Doctor Brooks made a second expedition to the 

 Bahamas in 1887, and established a laboratory for twelve students 

 some three miles from Nassau, on the island of New Providence, 

 from March i to July i. But the steady growth in value of the 

 marine laboratory, was destined to a rude shock following the 

 financial losses to the Johns Hopkins University that made re- 

 trenchment necessary in all directions. After ten successful ses- 

 sions the " Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory" was suspended, 

 and its outfit dispersed. 



Doctor Brooks, however, turned to the United States Fish 

 Commission for aid and becoming Naturalist in charge of the 

 Station at Woods Holl, Massachusetts, continued his work there 

 with some of his students in the summer months of 1888; while 

 in 1889 and 1890 they also were somewhat aided by the same 

 Government bureau. But in 1891 the University was again able 

 to promote his researches and sent him with some fourteen others 

 to Jamaica, West Indies, May 26 to September i. Here he estab- 

 lished a successful laboratory at Port Henderson, on the shore of 

 the harbor opposite Kingston and Port Royal. Though he hoped 

 that the English plan for a Columbus Marine Station might aid 

 him in future years, that plan did not materialize and henceforth 

 Professor Brooks' energies were more given to work in Baltimore 

 upon material that was obtained for him and less to personal study 

 in new marine laboratories. 



In 1892 he sent three of his students to investigate the edge of 

 the great submerged table-land which borders the Gulf Stream 

 on the east and they studied at Alice Town, North Bimini, while 

 in 1893 others went back to Port Henderson, Jamaica, as did others 



