THE 



MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN, 



BEING THE 



TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT 



OP THE 



LIVERPOOL MARINE BIOLOGY COMMITTEE. 



We have again to record a serious loss in the death of 

 Mr. Lomas, an active and much valued member of the 

 Committee, who was killed in a railway accident in the 

 Algerian desert on the way to Biskra, on December 17th 

 1908. 



Joseph Lomas, F.G.S., came to Liverpool from the 

 Royal College of Science and School of Mines, South 

 Kensington, where he had been a pupil of Huxley, Tudd, 

 Howes, Scott, and other famous teachers. He joined 

 University College as a research student in 1885, and 

 his first research in our laboratories was zoological — 

 although it had a geological bearing too — being on the 

 marine polyzoa, and especially those that build up lime- 

 stone colonies often found fossil in the rocks. In fact, I 

 think it is the case that throughout his original work the 

 borderland between the two sciences, or rather the 

 applications of zoological knowledge to the interpretation 

 of geological appearances, had a special attraction 

 for Lomas; and that, no doubt, accounted for his 

 enthusiastic support of the Biological Society and the 

 Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, and his helpful 

 participation in our submarine explorations. His special 

 function on these expeditions was to collect, examine, 

 and report upon the nature and origin of the various 

 deposils now being formed on the sea bottom, and to 

 compare them with the more ancient ones thai have 



