Alexander Agassiz watches a deep-sea trawl 

 being hauled over the side of the Albatross, 

 one of the steamers he chartered to 

 carry out oceanographic research. 



Edward Forbes, the British naturalist and 

 professor at London and Edinburgh 

 universities, achieved recognition in 

 all the natural sciences. 



Bay and fifty thousand dollars to convert existing buildings on 

 the island into a laboratory. This happened in 1873, but Agassiz 

 died before the close of the year and the laboratory died with him. 



Meanwhile, Agassiz's work was being paralleled by that of Anton 

 Dohrn, a German born in 1840, who was to succeed permanently 

 where Gosse had failed and Agassiz had tasted only temporary 

 success. Dohrn's early studies in marine zoology at Messina, in 

 Italy, inspired him with the idea of establishing a marine biological 

 station that would have an international character. Eventually he 

 chose Naples for the site and appealed to the German government 

 for help. As with Agassiz' appeal to the Massachusetts legislature, 

 Dohrn's request got nowhere; but with the assistance of friends, 

 England's Royal Society, plus his own determination and the use 

 of his personal fortune, he managed to tip the scales. The first part 

 of the Stazione Zoologica at Naples was opened in 1873. This 

 time the venture flourished. A second building followed in 1890, 

 a third in 1907; today the Naples Station, directed by Dr. Peter 

 Dohrn, the founder's grandson, is considered the alma mater of 

 scores of marine stations throughout the world. 



The biologists, chemists, physicists, and technicians who staff 

 a typical marine station study Ufe along the shore and in the shallow 

 seas; their work, therefore, complements the work done by ocean- 

 going research vessels. Although much of the work carried out by 

 a marine station can be performed in university laboratories situated 

 inland, there are enormous advantages in having permanent lab- 

 oratories located on the coasts. The permanent marine station allows 

 continuous study of the shore and shallow seas throughout the 

 year; and with one or more vessels attached to it, the station can 

 conduct routine surveys — compiling charts of temperature, salinity, 

 and other properties of the offshore waters. At the same time, 

 particular problems — that affect fisheries, for instance — can be 

 studied within hours of the time they are detected, when time can 

 be very important. 



The work done at the more than 500 marine stations scattered 

 over the world varies according to the object for which each station 

 was founded. Some, such as the Fisheries Laboratory of the Ministry 

 of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food (at Lowestoft, England) and 

 the Shellfish Laboratory of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (at 

 Milford, Connecticut), are more concerned with fishery problems. 

 Others, such as the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological 

 Association of the United Kindgom, the Seto Marine Biological 

 Laboratory in Japan, and the Woods Hole Marine Biological Labo- 

 ratory near Cape Cod in the United States, are concerned with more 

 academic studies. But in all the spirit of inquiry is broadly based 

 and every station takes a close interest in the work being done in all 

 the others. 



As the founding of marine stations was an inevitable next step 

 from the informal exploration of the shores and shallow seas, ocean- 

 going expeditions inevitably followed the establishment of marine 

 stations. 



It was again an Englishman who provided much of the impetus 

 for the nineteenth-century upsurge of interest in such expeditions. 

 In 1843 Edward Forbes, who was a professional lecturer on natural 

 science, suggested that no plant life — and very little animal life — 

 could exist in the sea below 1 00 fathoms, and that below 3 00 fathoms 



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