13 



order, there is little doubt that its ordinary expenses could be 

 met by annual subscriptions and by the small admission fees 

 charged to the transient public. 



It would of course be of immense advantage if the Laboratory 

 could control a large steamer of about two hundred feet in length, 

 to be used for research and as a peripatetic laboratory for explo- 

 ration along all parts of our coast or elsewhere. Such facilities, 

 however, demand a large original outlay and a large annual ex- 

 penditure. From ^75,000 to 1100,000 would be needed for the 

 equipment of the vessel, and an annual income of from $25,000 

 to $30,000 to run it to advantage, and to provide the means of 

 publication for the Station. Such an equipment would, however, 

 be unique among the stations now in existence, and nothing 

 would tend to develop more rapidly our knowledge of the 

 natural history of the sea than such a vessel, well equipped and 

 in charge of a director competent to undertake even distant ex- 

 peditions devoted to the solution of some special problem of 

 thalassography. 



ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. 



Cambridge, October 1, 1892, 



