Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/45

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MARINE ZOOLOGY IN THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC.
41

A LABORATORY FOR THE STUDY OF MARINE ZOOLOGY IN THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC.[1]

By Dr. ALFRED GOLDSBOROUGH MAYER.

MANY able naturalists have discussed the question of the advisability of establishing a marine biological laboratory for research within the West Indian region, and the advocacy of the idea by Huxley and Lancaster is a matter of recent memory. While none of these discussions has resulted in the establishment of a permanent laboratory they have served a useful purpose in keeping alive the interest of

Track of Loggerhead Turtle (T. caretta) made in crawling up the Beach to lay its Eggs. Loggerhead Key, Tortugas.

biologists, and also in proving that it is very difficult to bring about a combination of colleges or learned societies which will lead to the establishment of such a station.

Indeed the realization of the establishment of such a laboratory might be considered well-nigh hopeless were it not for the recent creation of the Carnegie Institution. If it be the aim of this institution to maintain researches which no existing agencies have been able to


  1. With illustrations by permission of the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.