466 REPORT—1885. 
Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Ray LANKESTER, 
Mr. P. L. ScuaTerR, Professor M. Foster, Mr. A. SEDGWICK, Pro- 
fessor A. M. Marsua.., Professor A.C. HADDON, Professor MOsELEY, 
and Mr. Percy SLAvEN (Secretary), appointed for the purpose of 
arranging for the ocewpation of a Table at the Zoological Station 
at Naples. 
In the Report read last year at Montreal, it was announced that a 
scheme was on foot for the building of a large physiological laboratory 
in connection with the Zoological Station at Naples, and for the purchase 
of a new sea-going steamer, to be equipped asa floating laboratory. Your 
Committee are now able to report that both these projects are steadily 
advancing towards attainment. For the physiological laboratory the 
Municipality of Naples has made a grant of 400 square métres of ground, 
and the Italian Parliament has voted the sum of 50,000 lire towards the 
cost of building. Work is already commenced, and the plans show that 
the new laboratory will form an extension of the present handsome 
station, and will be carried out in the same style of architecture. 
In addition to this assistance from the Italian Government, a Union 
of the maritime provinces of South Italy is about to be formed for the 
purpose of contributing towards the cost of the new laboratory, and of 
maintaining two tables there for the use of natives of the provinces 
concerned. 
The exceptional advantages that a physiological laboratory connected — 
with the Zoological Station will afford to investigators are too obvious to 
need recapitulation here; and Professor Dohrn will receive the congratu- 
lations of all biologists upon the patience with which his scheme, after 
years of anxious development, has been matured, and upon the success 
with which it has now been rewarded. 
The new steamship, which it is hoped will shortly be in the possession 
of the station, will form a further and no less important addition to the 
capabilities of the establishment. The undertaking is in the hands of an 
influential committee in Germany, organised for the purpose of collecting 
subscriptions, and by whom the vessel will be presented to the station. 
It is intended that the steamer should be of 300 to 400 tons burden, with 
engines of 150 to 200 horse-power, and be fitted up in all respects as a 
floating laboratory. With such a vessel it will be perfectly practicable 
to remain weeks or months in any desired locality, and distance from 
home will be no obstacle, as the naturalists will live and work on board. 
Biologists will call to mind numberless difficult problems that it will 
be possible by this means to investigate with every prospect of successful 
solution, which hitherto have remained unapproachable. The imaginary 
sketch of what might readily be accomplished by means of the floating 
laboratory, given by Professor Dohrn in a recently published report on 
the progress and prospects of the Zoological Station, reads almost like a 
naturalist’s dream—a scientist’s castle in the air—instead of the calm — 
résumé of what will be reasonably possible in the near future so soon as 
the station is in possession of this veritable castle on the sea. 
Concurrent with these greater strides of the Zoological Station, 
improvements in the general management, in methods of work, and in 
instruments of research are constantly being made, the details of which 
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