Though privately founded and for some time without organic connection with any other institution, its property and endowment were deeded to the regents of the University of California in 1911, thus making it a department of the university.
The main elements in its physical being are 177 acres of land with a half mile of ocean front in the city of San Diego about two miles north of the suburb of La Jolla; a fireproof reinforced concrete laboratory building 47 by 74 feet, two stories high; a 20,000 gallon concrete tank for sea water with tank house; thirteen cottage residences, one of which is a commodious two-story structure; one carefully planned and well-built animal house for experimental breeding; and an eighteen-ton motor boat, the Alexander Agassiz, equipped for biologic and oceanographic work at sea.
The laboratory contains twelve individual research rooms, six of which are furnished with aquaria constructed of concrete, iron and plate glass. There is also a general aquarium room with concrete tanks and glass aquaria.
A room 40 by 32 feet on the second floor contains a well-displayed collection of the marine life of the San Diego region. On the first floor in a combined collection and reagent room are arranged several thousand bottles of research collections, chiefly of pelagic organisms.
The library, consisting of about 3,500 bound volumes and a much larger number of pamphlets, occupies three rooms on the second floor, one of which serves as a journal and reading room. The books are fully classified, catalogued and arranged, and as the number is increasing rapidly the library is becoming a fairly good one for the kinds of investigation prosecuted by the institution. The university library at Berkeley still has to be called on, however, for many works, particularly when studies which fall outside the program of the institution are being carried on.
At present the institution has an annual income of about $20,000, $10,500 of which come from the Scripps endowment, $7,500 from the state of California, and the balance from miscellaneous sources, chiefly rentals.
The staff consists of four resident investigators, three of whom are biologists and one an oceanographer; a business manager who acts also as master of the Agassiz; a scientific secretary who serves likewise as assistant librarian; an engineer and keeper for the Agassiz; and a helper for the buildings and grounds. In addition, there is a non-resident contingent of the research staff consisting at present of four biologists. These are able by reason of their vocations to be in La Jolla only at irregular intervals and for short periods, but are regularly engaged upon the institution's program. They receive fixed compensations for their work.
