22 
WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS 
but he also fitted the steam yacht Lookout with dredging apparatus, and 
rendered us valuable help in dredging and collecting. Through his influ- 
ence a small steam launch was also detailed from the U. S. Navy for 
our use. 
The next year the Trustees of the University voted to continue the 
laboratory for three years more, 1880-1-2, and they provided a liberal 
annual appropriation of $1,000 for current expenses, which was renewed 
annually in 1883-4-5-6, and was expended in rent, wages, fuel, laboratory 
supplies, repairs, etc. They also appropriated the sum of $4,500 for 
permanent outfit, and most of this was used in the purchase of two boats; 
a Herreshoff steam launch twenty-seven feet long and eight feet beam, 
and a center-board sloop forty-seven feet long and fourteen feet beam. 
After an examination of all the available localities the town of Beau- 
fort, N. C, about four hundred miles south of Baltimore, was selected 
as the site for the laboratory, and a vacant house, suitable for the accom- 
modation of a small party, was found and rented as a laboratory and lodg- 
ings for the party, and it has been occupied during the seasons of 1880- 
1-2-4-5, and by two students in 1886. As the director was, in 1883, a 
member of the Maryland Oyster Commission, the outfit of the laboratory - 
was that year moved from Beaufort into the Chesapeake Bay, and we 
occupied a building which we rented from the Normal School at Hamp- 
ton, Va. As Hampton proved to be a very unfavorable place for our 
work we returned to Beaufort the next year, and we have accordingly 
spent five seasons at Beaufort. 
During the season of 1886 the zoological students of the University 
were stationed at three widely separated points of the seacoast. A party 
of seven under my direction visited the Bahama Islands, two were at 
Beaufort, and one occupied the University table at the station of the 
U. S. Fish Commission at Woods Hole. 
The party which visited the Bahamas consisted of seven persons, and 
our expedition occupied tw^o months, about half of this being consumed 
by the journey. 
The season which is most suitable for our work ends in July, and we had 
hoped to reach the Islands in time for ten or twelve weeks of work there, 
but the difficulty which I experienced in my attempts to obtain a proper 
vessel delayed us in Baltimore, and as we met with many delays after 
we started, we were nearly three weeks in reaching our destination. 
We stopped at Beaufort to ship our laboratory outfit and furniture, 
but the vessel, a schooner of 49 tons, was so small that all the available 
space was needed for our accommodation, and we were forced to leave 
part of our outfit behind at Beaufort. 
