n BIOLOGY AND THE STATE 101 



maintenance of a biological laboratory and staff, it 

 would be necessary, in expending so limited a sum, to 

 aim at the provision of something which would be 

 likely to produce the largest and most obvious results 

 in return for the outlay, and to benefit the largest 

 number of scientific observers in this department. 



I believe that it is the general opinion among 

 biologists that there could be no more generally 

 useful institution thus set in operation than a bio- 

 logical laboratory upon the sea-coast, which, besides 

 its own permanent staff of officers, would throw open 

 its resources to such naturalists as might from time 

 to time be able to devote themselves to researches 

 within its precincts. There is no such laboratory on 

 the whole of the long line of British coast. At 

 Naples there is Dr. Dohrn's celebrated and invaluable 

 laboratory, which is frequented by naturalists from all 

 parts of the world ; at Trieste the Austrian Govern- 

 ment supports such a laboratory; at Concarneau, 

 Eoscoff, and Yillefranche, the French Government has 

 such institutions; at Beaufort, in North Carolina, 

 the Johns Hopkins University has its marine labora- 

 tory ; and at Newport, Professor Alexander Agassiz 

 has arranged a very perfect institution also for the 

 study of marine life. In spite of the great interest 

 which English naturalists have always taken in the 

 exploration of the sea and marine organisms — 

 in spite of the fact that the success and even 

 the existence of our fisheries -industries to a large 

 extent depends upon our gaining the knowledge 

 which a well -organised laboratory of marine biology 



