Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/630

 when difficulties arise, either of technique or interpretation, the instructor is at hand to smooth away the trouble.

For those who have passed this preliminary training, and who are ready to carry on investigation, twenty-four private rooms on the second floor are set aside. Here, in privacy and in quiet, undisturbed by others, each can solve his problems. In each room is an aquarium to keep the animals or plants, while the table and shelves are supplied with the necessary books, reagents, and glassware. All who have carried on investigations after the modern methods of zoölogy and botany realize that rapidity is incompatible with good work. A thorough piece of investigation can not be completed in a few weeks; and yet over thirty papers have been published, or are now in press, as the results of the investigations



carried on in those private rooms. No laboratory connected with any college or university in the country can show equal productiveness.

In both upper and lower laboratories, among both beginners and investigators, some are working at zoölogical, others at botanical subjects; while this year, for the first time, physiology is to be included in the work done. Material for study is abundant. Besides row-boats, which are available for shore collecting, the laboratory has a sail-boat and also a Burgess-built steam-launch, the Sagitta, which has proved itself the fastest boat in the region. This is daily in use. Now it goes out on a dredging trip in the sound; yesterday it made a trip to Cuttyhunk or Gay Head for lobsters; this morning it made the round of the fish-pounds