TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 525 
of the necessary support. Seeing that the results of research are distinctly of 
imperial, and not of local value—it would seem appropriate that a portion of the 
imperial revenue should be devoted to their achievement. In fact, as I have before 
mentioned, the principle of such an application of public money has long been 
admitted, and is in operation. 
Whilst voluntary donations on the part of private persons can do little to con- 
stitute a fund which shall provide the requisite endowment for the scheme of 
biological institutes which I have sketched (not to mention those required for 
other branches of science), yet those who are interested in the progress of scientific 
investigation may by individual effort do something, however little, towards placing 
research in a more advantageous position in this country. Supposing it were 
possible, as I am sanguine enough to believe that it is, to collect in the course of a 
year or two from private sources a sum of 20,0007. for the 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 biological 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 Government supports such a laboratory ; at Concar- 
neau, Roscoff, and Villefranche, 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 would help us to gain, there 
is actually no such institution in existence. 
This is not the occasion on which to explain precisely how and to what extent a 
laboratory of marine zoology might be of national importance. I hope to see 
that matter brought before the Section during the course of our meeting. But I 
may point out now, that though it appears to me that the great need for 
biological institutes, to which I have drawn your attention, can not be met by 
private munificence, and must in the end be arranged for by the continued action 
of the Government in carrying out a policy to which it has for many years been 
committed, and which has been approved by Conservatives and Liberals alike—yet 
such a special institution as a laboratory of marine biology, serving as a tem- 
porary workshop to any and all of our numerous students of the important 
problems connected with the life of marine plants and animals, might very well 
be undertaken from private funds. Should it be possible, on the occasion of this 
meeting of the British Association in Southport, to obtain some promise of assist- 
ance towards the realisation of this project, I think we shall be able to congratu- 
late ourselves on having done something, though small perhaps in amount, towards 
making better provision for biological research, and therefore something towards 
the advancement of science. 
In conclusion, let me say that, in advocating to-day the claim of biological 
science to a far greater measure of support than it receives at present from the 
public funds, I have endeavoured to press that claim chiefly on the ground of the 
obvious utility to the community of that kind of knowledge which is called 
biology. I have endeavoured to meet the opposition of those who object to the 
interference of the State wherever it may be possible to attain the end in view 
without such interference, but who profess themselves willing to see public money 
expended in promoting objects which are of real importance to the country, and 
