SCIENCE. 



successful essay will be the property of the Association, 

 which will assume the care of its publication. 6. Any 

 intimation tending to reveal the authorship of any of the 

 essays submitted, whether directly or indirectly conveyed 

 to the Commiitee or to any member thereof, shall ex- 

 clude the essay from competition. 7. The award of the 

 prize will be announced by the undersigned Committee ; 

 and will be publicly declared by the President of the As- 

 sociation at the meeting in June, 1882. 8. The amount 

 of the prize will be given to the successful competitor in 

 gold coin of the United States, or, it he prefer it, in the 

 shape cf a geld medal bearing a suitable device and in- 

 scription. 



C F. T. Miles, M.D., Baltimore. 

 Signed, 1 J. S. Jewell, M.D., Chicago. 



( E. C. Seguin, M.D., New York. 



CHESAPEAKE ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 



Dr. W. K. Brooks, Director of the Chesapeake Zoo- 

 logical Laboratory, established under the auspices of the 

 the Johns Hopkins University, in his report for 1880 

 sta'es: By the liberality of the Trustees, it was pos- 

 sible to spend a much longer period than hitherto at the 

 seaside, and provided with a more liberal outfit, includ- 

 ing a steam launch which was built, for our use in the 

 last spring, at Bristol, R. I., and has proved a very 

 efficient auxiliary. The necessary books, dredges, and 

 other instruments were also provided by the University. 

 In addition to the opportunities afforded to three of the 

 members of our own academic staff, three other gentle- 

 men, devoted to the study of Zoology, were invited to 

 avail themselves of the scientific facilities of the station. 



The laboratory was opened at Beaufort, N. C, on 

 April 23, 1880, and closed on September 30, after a 

 session of twenty-three weeks. It was supplied with 

 working accommodations for six investigators, and the 

 facilities which it afforded were used by the foliowing six 

 persons : W, K. BROOKS, Ph. D., Director ; K. Mit- 

 SUKURI, PH. B., Fellow in Biology ; E. B. WILSON, Ph. 

 B., Fellow in Biology ; F. W. KING, A. M., Professor of 

 Natural Science, Wisconsin State Normal School ; H. C. 

 Evarts, M. D., Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila- 

 delphia ; H. F. Osborne, Ph. D. Fellow of the College of 

 New Jersey. 



Beaufort was selected for our third season's woik be- 

 cause it is the nearest accessible town, south of Balti- 

 more, which is favorably situated for zoological study. 

 The advantages of a location in a town are well shown 

 by the fact that the expenses of a session of twenty-three 

 weeks this year were considerably less than those of a 

 ten weeks session the year before. 



The scientific advantages of Beaufort are very great ; 

 the most important is the great difference between its 

 fauna and that of our northern Atlantic coast. 



The configuration of our coast line is such that Cape 

 Hatteras, the most projecting point south of New York, 

 deflects the warm water of the Gulf Stream away from 

 the coast, and thus forms an abrupt barrier between a 

 cold northern coast and a warm southern one. The fauna 

 north of this barrier passes gradually into that of southern 

 New England, while the fauna south of this barrier passes 

 without any abrupt change into that of Florida, but the 

 northern fauna is sharply separated by Cape Hatteras 

 from the southern. 



As the laboratory of the U. S. Fish Commission and Mr. 

 Agassiz's laboratory at Newport afford opportunites for 

 work upon the northern fauna, it seemed best for us to 

 select a point south of Cape Hatteras in order to study 

 the southern fauna with the same advantages, and as 

 Beaufort is the only town near the Cape which can be 

 reached without difficulty, it was chosen as the best place 

 for the laboratory. 



The situation of this town is exceptionally favorable for 



zoological work, for the surrounding waters present such 

 a diversity of conditions that the fauna is unusually rich 

 and varied. 



Close to the town there are large sand bars, bare for 

 miles at low tide, and abounding in animal life. From 

 these we could collect an unfailing supply of Amphioxus, 

 Rcnilla ; Limulus, Balanoglosus, Sea Urchins, and a 

 great variety of Molluscs and Crustacea. 



The mud flats furnished us with another fauna, and 

 yielded a great variety of Annelids, a new set of species of 

 Crustacea and Molluscs, Gephyreans, Echinoderms, and 

 Polyps. The large salt marshes gave us a third fauna, 

 and a short distance inland large swamps of brackish and 

 fresh water furnished still other conditions of life. 



As the town is situated at the point where Gore Sound 

 connects Pamlico Sound with Bogue Sound we were 

 within easy reach of a continuous sheet of landlocked 

 salt water more than a hundred miles long, and these 

 Sounds furnished still another collecting and dredging 

 ground, abounding in Corals, Gorgonias, Ascidians, Star 

 Fish, Sea Urchins, and a new set of Molluscs and Crus- 

 tacea. 



As most of the shores are flat and sandy, those ani- 

 mals which live upon a sandy bottom are much more 

 abundant than those which attach themselves to solid 

 bodies, but the stone breakwaters at Fort Macon, the 

 wharves at Beaufort and Morehead City, and the large 

 oyster beds which are found in the sounds furnish a proper 

 habitat for many fixed animals, and yielded us a rich sup- 

 ply of Hydroids, Corals, Ascidians, Sea Anemones, 

 Sponges, Cirrhipeds, &c. The ocean beach, within a 

 short distance of the town, furnished still another fauna, 

 and a soil of three miles from the labora'ory carried us to 

 a good locality for ocean dredging. 



The greatest advantage of the locality is the richness 

 of its pelagic fauna. There are very few points upon 

 land which are so situated that the surface animals of 

 mid-ocean can be procured in abundance for laboratory 

 work, and as careful work is very difficult on shipboard, 

 a laboratory which can be furnished with a good supply 

 of living pelagic animals presents opportunities for work 

 in an extremely interesting and almost new field. 



The Gulf Stream is constantly sweeping these animals 

 northwards along the North Carolina coast, and as the 

 tide sets in through Beaufort Inlet into the Sounds the 

 floating animals are carried with it. Such oceanic ani- 

 mals as Physalia and Porpita were frequently thrown, 

 uninjured and in perfect health, upon the beach within 

 twenty feet of the laboratory, and duiing the season we 

 found nearly all the Siphonophora: which are known to 

 occur upon our Atlantic coast. 



With all these advantages we enjoyed a mild and uni- 

 form climate which enabled us to work in perfect com- 

 fort during the hottest months of summer. 



The zoological resources of Beaufort have not escaped 

 the attention of American naturalists, and there are few 

 places upon our coast, outside of New England, where 

 more zoological work has been done. In i860, Drs. 

 Stimpson and Gill spent a season in dredging and collect- 

 ing in the vicinity of Beaufort, Cape Lookout and Cape 

 Hatteras, and an account of their work was published in 

 The American Journal of Science. Dr. Coues, who was 

 stationed at Fort Macon during the war, occupied him- 

 self for two years in collecting the animals which are found 

 here, and he published a series of papers on the " Natural 

 Histsry of Fort Macon and Vicinity" in the Proceedings 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 



These papers, which were continued by Dr. Yarrow, 

 contain copious and valuable notes on the habits and 

 distribution of the animals which were observed, and we 

 found them a great help to us. These two naturalists 

 found four hundred and eighty species of animals in the 

 vicinity of Beaufort. Of these four hundred and eighty, 

 two hundred and ninety-eight are vertebrates, and one 



