FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT 119 



Aquarium is to occupy the place among scientific institutions that 

 it should, some provision must be made for this growth. 



There are two ways in which this may be met : one is to 

 provide a staff of curators who will be, not merely caretakers, 

 but men of scientific ability who will be able ^^o carry on scientific 

 research in their various lines ; the other to provide an oppor- 

 tunity for volunteer research by furnishing adequate laboratory 

 space, equipment, material and library facilities of sufficient value 

 to attract scientists to carry on aquatic research in our institu- 

 tion. 



With regard to the former little need be urged in its favor, 

 as it is a successful and established method already in use in the 

 Museums, the Zoological Park, the Botanical Gardens and simi- 

 lar institutions outside of the City ; and the latter method is by 

 no means a new idea. The great laboratory connected with the 

 Naples Aquarium attracts the very flower of the scientific world 

 by its facilities for research, while in our own country, the U. S. 

 Fisheries Laboratories at Woods Hole, Mass., and Beaufort, N. 

 C, as well as the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, 

 and the Carnegie Laboratories at Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., and 

 the Tortugas Islands, Florida, as well as many other similar labo- 

 ratories the whole country over, attest to the popularity of such 

 institutions for the furthering of research. However, in Amer- 

 ica as yet there is no great laboratory open throughout the year 

 to investigators in the realm of aquatic biology. As a result 

 practically all problems in this field, that have been solved by 

 American investigators, are of such a nature that they can be 

 carried out during the summer months when the summer labora- 

 tories are open. But there are many problems for which the 

 proper material cannot be secured in summer, and others which 

 require a longer season of research with living material than the 

 summer laboratories aiford. This is the age of scientific investi- 

 gation, and the New York Aquarium should not be behind the 

 other institutions of the City and country in furthering the work. 

 In the opinion the writer, both of the above mentioned plans 

 should be put into execution. 



The educational value of the public aquarium and the general 

 interest of all classes of people in aquarium exhibits are no longer 

 matters of conjecture. The remarkable attendance at our Aquar- 

 ium, far outnumbering that at any other city institution, attests 

 its popularity in much stronger terms than mere words can do. 

 The Detroit Aquarium, which has been in existence only seven 

 years, already has an annual attendance approaching the million 



