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SEA GRANT COLLEGES 



graphic Institution. From the very beginning the relationships of these insti- 

 tutions with the universities, not only in New England but throughout the. 

 country, have been intimate and cordial. Tlie personnel of these three labora- 

 tories encompass nearly every aspect of basic research conceraing the oceans 

 and the life that they contain, the seabed l)elow. and the atmosphere above. 

 The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Biological Laboratory was the first 

 to be established in Woods Hole. Spencer F. Baird, Assistant Secretary of the. 

 Smithsonian Institution was appointed the first U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries 

 by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871. Baird was well knowm to the scientific 

 circles in this country and abroad as a naturalist, a student of classification 

 and distribution of mammals and birds. Baird carried on extensive studies 

 of the fisheries of New England before selecting Woods Hole as an ideal loca- 

 tion for a permanent laboratory for the Fish Commission. The reasons for the 

 selection are still valid today and explain in part why the other two laboratories 

 also selected Woods Hole. The excellent harbor is suitable for the type of ves- 

 sel used in oceanography and fisheries research and, since there is little land 

 drainage, the sea water is relatively clean and unpolluted and remains at a 

 nearly constant salinity throughout the year. It is thus an ideal source for the 

 maintenance of living specimens under laboratoiT conditions. Cape Cod is the 

 location of a summer temperature boundary, as those who swim in the waters 

 both north and south of Cape Cod in the summertime well know. Many north- 

 em species of organisms have the southern limit of their distribution on the 

 northern shores of Cape Cod while many southern species have their limit on 

 the southern shores. Thus populations of two quite distinct sorts are available 

 within a short distance of the laboratories. The open sea and the Gulf Stream 

 are less than a day's sail from the docks in Woods Hole and consequently tlie 

 scientist has a wide variety of marine conditions available and readily accessible. 

 Woods Hole was always intimately associated with maritime affairs fix>m the 

 landing of Bartholomew Gosnold in May of 1602, 18 years before the Pilgrims 

 landed at Provincetov,-n and Plymouth, to the days when New England whaling 

 captains fitted out and took on water at Bar Neck Wharf, the site of the present 

 laboratory buildings. This history of the development of marine sciences in 

 Woods Hole can be dated officially as starting wdth the establishment of the 

 Biological Laboratories of the Fish Commission in 1875, though the laboratory 

 building was not completed and occupied by the s<*ientists until a decade later. 

 At about this same time another great naturalist, Professor Agassiz of Har-. 

 vard University, was anxious to provide his students with the opportunity to 

 study living specimens of the abundant fauna of the marine environment. He 

 established a small laboratory on Penikese Islands in Buzzards Bay, but found' 

 that the problems of transportation and access made its continuous use difiicult. 

 As an outgrowth of this marine station, however, a group of university professors 

 with very meager financial assets established in March 1888 a new institution 

 under the name of the Marine Biological Laboratory. From a modest shingled 

 building erected during that first year, the MBL has grown to a position of inter- . 

 national stature in biological research that is unequaled in the world. Many 

 of the great American biologists of the present century have studied livingj 

 marine specimens in the courses offered during the summertime or have conducted 

 some of their research at the MBL. From the very beginning the MBL enjoyed 

 the full support and cooperation of the Fish Commission Biological Laboratories 

 and this spirit of cooperation has prevailed throughout the history of Woods 

 Hole. The MBL continues to be primarily a summer laboratory offering space 

 and facilities to university professors to conduct part of their research during 

 the summer and offering courses in various aspects of marine biology to students 

 drawn from colleges and universities throughout the country. 



The youngest of the three laboratories is the Woods Hole Oceanographic 

 Institution which was founded in 1930 as the result of a study conducted by a 

 Committee on Oceanography of the National Academy of Sciences. Here agaia 

 complete cooperation was offered by the existing laboratories to the fledgling 

 newcomer. The Chairman of the Committee was Frank Lilly who was, at that 

 time, director of the INIBL. The secretary of the Committee was Henry B. Bige- 

 low, professor of biology at Harvard University, who became the first Director 

 of the Institution. The Oceanographic was founded and existed for about 10 

 years primarily as a summer marine station. Tliis was because Dr. Bigelow, 

 "the first Director, did not believe that scientists could be content to live in the 

 virtual isolation of a small New England village, a fact which was probably true 

 at that time with the verv limited size of the professional comn^unity in Woods 



