ho 
iS) 
the field excursions of the classes. At no time is the speed very 
great, seven miles an hour being the maximum maintained. 
Furthermore, the draught of the boat interferes with its greatest 
usefulness in the shoal waters in which at times our work com- 
pels us to go. It is only a question of time when extensive 
repairs will be necessary upon the hull. I would therefore 
recommend that an effort be made to secure a larger boat with 
more powerful machinery so as to carry more passengers and, 
if necessary, to tow a barge. Greater speed and less draught 
can be secured with such a boat. It would also enable us to 
considerably extend the field of our operations. Such a launch 
will be a prime necessity when the work of the Station is 
extended to the Mississippi River. 
The outfit of small boats, which consists of two lap-streak 
lake-boats, one lap-streak river-boat, and an Illinois River skiff, 
has been supplemented by the addition of a large flat-bottom 
seme boat twenty feet in length with five-foot beam for the 
plankton work. The increasing complexity of this work and the 
variety of apparatus necessary for its performance has made 
the load required for a plankton trip too cumbersome for an 
ordinary boat. The total weight of the boat when manned and 
loaded with the outfit and water samples is not less than a 
thousand pounds.’ The increased attention given to winter 
work has necessitated the adaptation of the boat to the 
exigencies of that season. The bow and sides are protected by 
a sheath of zine, and while the ice prevails the bottom is shod 
with two steel runners. With the boat thus equipped it is usu- 
ally possible by rocking the boat and skillful manipulation of 
the ice-hooks to beat a way through the thin and rotten ice 
which will not carry the weight of the load, while the runners 
allow the boat to slide easily over the surface of the smooth ice 
wherever this is strong enough to bear the weight. The createst 
difficulty attending transit in the field in the winter occurs at 
times when the river is low and access to Thompson’s Lake 
must be had by portage across the bottomlands at the southern 
end of the lake. A pair of wheels has been rigged up for this 
work, but in wet weather or after heavy snows they are hardly 
adequate to the task. 
In the fall of 1896 the rented quarters which the Station 
a 
