5 
By the death of Principal Gurney, we have lost a friend who 
took the greatest interest in the fishery investigations we are con- 
ducting in connexion with the Natural History Department of the 
College and the Cullercoats Laboratory, which he opened in 1897. 
We have suffered another loss through the untimely end of E. 
P. Witten, B.Sc., who after a brilliant College career showed by 
his work, as will be seen by reference to my last two reports, great 
promise in the field of zoological research. 
I regret to have to record that on March 28th a fire broke out 
in the Cullercoats Laboratory, and so serious was the damage that 
it brought the work conducted there entirely to an end. It meant 
not merely the destruction of most of our collections, of a great 
portion of our records, of valuable literature and apparatus belong- 
ing to the College, the Laboratory, and myself, but the total loss of 
the experiments which had been conducted for months with the 
object of obtaining as many facts as possible with regard to the 
growth of Crustacea, and the apparatus which had been procured 
for the purpose with the aid of a grant from the Royal Society. 
This laboratory we owed to the generosity of Aid. Dent, who has 
also given us the opportunities for conducting the experiments with 
reference to the white fishes of the district, and for obtaining much 
valuable material. It was conveniently situated,, and attracted not 
only local workers, but investigators from a distance. 
A committee of local noblemen and gentlemen has been formed 
with the object of reinstating the laboratory, and an appeal has 
been issued. The response, however, has not been so successful as 
the Committee desire, and we yet want the sum of £1,500 before 
we shall be in a position to build a laboratory worthy of the work 
and the district. 
Alexander Meek. 
