LXXXVIII REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
nished with closely adjoining windows, leaving scarcely any wall space 
for shelving to accommodate the necessary books and reagents. It is 
proposed to partly remedy this defect by dividing a portion of the room 
into small compartments by low partitions, more for the convenience 
of storage than for isolating the different workers. 
During the summer of 1888 a marine biological laboratory, designed 
to afford educational facilities as well as the means for special research, 
was established at Wood’s Holl, within a block of the Fish Commission 
station. A two-story frame building suited to those purposes, meas- 
uring 63 feet by 28 feet, has been constructed and equipped, and was 
occupied during most of last season. The founding of an institution of 
this character so close at hand has been heartily welcomed as promis- 
ing a friendly and sympathetic neighbor, whose opportunities for pro- 
moting the study of certain oceanic problems kindred to those which 
interest the Fish Commission will have a widespread appreciation. 
Hot limited in its scope by questions of practical utility, its activity 
may include the widest range of subjects within the province of marine 
biology, and the vicinity of Wood’s Holl furnishes abundant means to 
satisfy a majority of its needs. It is sincerely to be hoped that the 
beginning now made will eventually result in a large and permanent 
establishment, occupying a place in this country corresponding to the 
well-known Haples station of the Italian coast. 
The requirements of the seaside student have hitherto been very 
poorly met in America, and there has been little encouragement for 
those engaged in this branch of education. Hearly all of the so-called 
summer schools have been chiefly occupied with instruction of a more 
or less elementary character, and none have been long-lived. The first 
of this class in the United States was established by Prof. Louis Agassiz 
on Penikese Island, but its duration was determined by its distin- 
guished founder’s death. Several others have followed on a smaller 
scale, one of the most prosperous and deserving being the seaside lab- 
oratory at Annisquam, maintained from 1880 to 1886 by the Woihan’s 
Education Association of Boston, in cooperation with the Boston So- 
ciety of Hatural History. The present marine laboratory is an out- 
growth of the latter, and its organization is due to the efforts of several 
representative scientific men and women, of whom the larger proportion 
are residents of Boston and its vicinity. The necessary funds for the 
purchase of the land at Wood’s Holl, and for the building and its equip- 
ment, were secured by contributions. A small fee is charged for in- 
struction, and during last summer the investigators also were required 
to pay something for the privileges obtained, but in the future it is 
proposed to grant them all facilities without expense. The laboratory 
is still dependent upon the generosity of its friends, whose interest, 
however, is probably sufficient to insure its stability. 
The director of the laboratory is Dr. C. O. Whitman, formerly of the 
Lake Laboratory, Milwaukee, Wis., but now professor of biology in Clark 
