MARINE LABORATORIES, AND OUR ATLANTIC 

 COAST 



DR. ALFRED G. MAYER 

 Marine Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, 

 Dry Tortugas, Fla. 



We are fortunate above all civilized nations in having 

 in the range of our Atlantic sea-board a unique diversity 

 of conditions affecting marine life. The arctic current 

 creeps down the northern New England coast to Cape 

 Cod, and during the winter the strong northeasterly winds 

 drive its cold waters southward to the mouth of the 

 Chesapeake. In summer, however, the southerly winds 

 reverse these conditions, and the warm surface waters 

 from the Gulf stream are drifted upon the shores be- 

 tween Cape Hatteras and the southern side of Cape Cod. 



Another well-marked region is that between Cape 

 Hatteras and Cape Canaveral, Florida, where we find a 

 very characteristic warm-water fauna, which is again 

 distinct from that of the coral reef region of Florida, 

 south of Miami. 



Thus, broadly speaking, there are four well-marked 

 faunistic regions along our coast, and each affords its 

 own peculiar problems for research. A mainly arctic 

 fauna is found from northern Maine to Cape Cod, a 

 transitional and seasonally fluctuating fauna from the. 

 southern coast of Now England to Cape Hatteras, crea- 

 tures of a warm sea from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cana- 

 veral, Florida, and a strictly tropical colony from Bis- 

 cayne Bay, Florida, southward. 



The physical features of the coast itself are also most 

 important in determining the character of the animals of 

 the shore. Thus the rocky wave-worn ledges of the coast 

 of Maine, the varied character of that of southern New 

 England, the monotonous stretch of shifting sand be- 

 533 



