BARBADOS-ANTIGUA EXPEDITION il 
The other place suggested was our new possessions in the 
Danish West Indies. This region, as a matter of fact, proved to 
be devoid of proper accommodations for so large a party as 
ours. 
Upon visiting Washington on business for the United States 
National Museum, the writer was so fortunate as to make the 
acquaintance of Dr. Austin H. Clark, who promptly urged the 
claims of Barbados as a base for our operations. This island is 
the easternmost of the West Indian chain, which stretches in an 
are of over two thousand miles between North and South 
America. It seemed that some interesting problems of geo- 
graphic distribution might be solved there. At any rate, al- 
most every species taken with the dredge or tangles would be 
the basis of a new locality record and fill an important gap in 
our zoological knowledge of the West Indian region. He rep- 
resented the climate as healthful and the attitude of the colonial 
authorities friendly, statements of which both have been amply 
verified. | | 
Dr. Clark also put us in communication with Sir Francis 
Watts, Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture for the British 
West Indies, a man whose scientific acumen and knowledge of 
the region is surpassed by no one, so far as I am aware. This 
was a fortunate introduction for us and resulted in our secur- 
ing the most influential and intelligent helpfulness that could 
_ be imagined. 
At this time I also had the pleasure of meeting another man 
who was destined to be invaluable to the success of our under- 
taking, Mr. John B. Henderson, one of the Regents of the Smith- 
sonian Institution, an enthusiastic naturalist particularly in- 
terested in the Mollusca, who had collected extensively in Cuba, 
the Bahamas, and Florida Keys. Mr. Henderson had, more- 
over, worked out an admirable equipment for dredging with his 
launch down to two hundred fathoms, and had published an 
unusually interesting volume on marine work off Cuba ‘‘The 
Cruise of the Tomas Barrera,’’ which I had read with great 
pleasure. As we shall learn, he ultimately became a member of 
the Barbados-Antigua Expedition. 
Upon my return to Iowa City and reporting upon the infor- 
mation gained in the east, the Zoology Club was enthusiastically 
