NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL. MEMOIRS — VOL. VI [ 



ralist, and he could find his own problems for work and become 

 an independent investigator. 



The Chesapeake Laboratory, unlike the one at Penikese, was 

 not limited to one place ; it consisted neither of buildings nor 

 equipment, but of men and ideas. For the first few years of 

 its existence it was located at several different points on Chesa- 

 peake Bay ; afterwards it was located at Beaufort, North Caro- 

 lina ; then at different places in the Bahama Islands, and finally 

 in Jamaica. In the various expeditions of Brooks and his stu- 

 dents to these different places they made not only a thorough 

 biological survey of each region, but they did work of most 

 fundamental and far-reaching importance on the various 

 groups of animals found. Out of these expeditions has grown 

 the beautiful and permanent station of the U. S. Fisheries 

 Bureau at Beaufort, 'North Carolina, in which Brooks took 

 great interest and pride. It was on these expeditions that his 

 students came to know him most intimately and affectionately. 

 In the memory of each of them is fixed some scene of his en- 

 thusiasm over the discovery of a rare specimen or of an un- 

 known stage in some life history ; his long vigils full of exciting 

 discoveries ; his quiet talks on nature and philosophy, after the 

 day's work was done. 



The Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory occupied so large a 

 place in the life and work of Professor Brooks that it seems 

 desirable to reproduce here, in his own words, a more detailed 

 account of the aims and history of that laboratory during its 

 first nine years. The following is taken from a report by Pro- 

 fessor Brooks on "The Zoological Work of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, 1878-86," published in the Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity Circulars, Vol. 6, No. 54 : 



In natural science the policy of the University is to promote the study 

 of life, rather than to accumulate specimens : and since natural laws are 

 best studied in their simplest manifestations, much attention has been 

 given to the investigation of the simpler forms of life, with confidence 

 that this will ultimately contribute to a clearer insight into all vital 

 phenomena. 



The oldest forms of life are marine : every great group of animals is 

 represented in the ocean, while many important and instructive groups 

 have no terrestrial representatives ; omitting the insects, more than four- 

 fifths of the known species of animals are marine, and the total amount 



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