47 
the South and West Coasts the work we have been doing with 
limited means and time on the East Coast. But to make the picture 
complete, it is only fair to state that the expenses of the trawling 
experiments are borne each year by Mr. Dent, and it is also owing 
to his generosity that we were able to establish the laboratory at 
Cullercoats. The Northumberland Sea Fisheries Committee bear 
the expense of maintenance, the upkeep of a small boat, and pay 
also for the spare time of a fisherman; they also provide for the 
publication of this annual report. A grant of i'100 from the 
Technical Education Committee of the Northumberland County 
Council to the Zoological Department of the Durham College of 
Science is all that appears on paper as the funds at our disposal. 
If we do not venture to compare our work then with what has 
been done elsewhere, we should certainly blush to state our resources 
in relation to those obtained by similar institutions in other parts of 
the country. As the College knows too well, the North of England 
has never shown much enthusiasm with regard to matters educa- 
tional, or at all events, scientific, and our laboratory merely illustrates 
the local position. It goes without saying that, if we had been a 
larger body, as a going concern, with funds coming in it might be 
said even adequate to the work we have accomplished, the investiga- 
tion of the Mid-North Sea would have been entrusted to us. 
The position of affairs, even now, is not just what it was when 
the Committee’s report was completed. A laboratory has been 
established since then at Lowestoft, to investigate the southern part 
of the North Sea in connection with the international scheme. 
Grimsby, it appears to us, would only represent the same area of the 
North Sea. And when we consider that the northern part of the 
North Sea is provided with the Scottish Fishery Board’s Laboratory 
at Aberdeen, a more central position for the proposed new laboratory 
would be the Tyne, and from there the Mid-North Sea could be 
better investigated than from Grimsby. For several years we have 
consistently recommended that a laboratory should be established at 
North Shields for the purpose of investigating the problems relating 
to the fish and the fisheries of the North Sea with the wealth of 
material landed there every day by trawlers. Besides, we have a 
record of six years’ investigations in connection with the local 
laboratory, and of eleven years by means of the trawling experiments, 
and this would form a nucleus for more extended enquiries, which 
it would take time at least to parallel. 
