Open Access

JSON Export

{"created":"2022-01-31T16:23:16.605514+00:00","id":"lit33413","links":{},"metadata":{"alternative":"Science","contributors":[{"name":"Nunn, Emily","role":"author"}],"detailsRefDisplay":"Science 1: 479-481, 507-510","fulltext":[{"file":"p0479.txt","language":"en","ocr_en":"June 1, 1883.1\nSCIENCE.\n479\nto be accounted for,\u2014 facts, possibly, best explained on the supposition of a greater subsidence of the western as compared with the eastern regions leading to submergence of the plains under water sufficiently deep to carry icebergs of large size.\nGeorge M. Dawson.\nGeol. survey of Canada, Ottawa,\nApril 10, 1883.\nTHE NAPLES ZOOLOGICAL STATION. I.\nFor half a century past, Naples has been the favorite resort of the zoologists of Europe\nDr. Anton Dohrn, in his voyages to the Mediterranean to carry out his researches, experienced, as others had done, grave difficulties which he could not, single-handed, overcome. To realize the conditions necessary for extensive and thorough work requires not only a large expenditure of money and time, but a permanent and growing institution, which provides all the instruments of research in a locality where nature furnishes in abundance and variety the material to be studied. To carry on biological work on a large scale in as many directions as possible, with a thoroughly equipped laboratory, permitting investigators to apply to their researches the most\non account of the wealth of the fauna of the neighboring waters. But the independent efforts of solitary naturalists were naturally unable to secure all the advantages for science which could be gained by suitable organization. Two old fishermen, who, forty 3\u2019ears ago, were turned aside from fishing for the market, and trained to collect for science by Johannes M\u00fcller, are still at work in the gulf, not now alone, but with a dozen other men, collecting with dredges, nets, hooks, and scaphandra, material for nearly thirty investigators, studying with all the resources of a completely organized laborator3\u2019 in the zoological station.\nelaborate technical processes, and to make use of the best modern methods, with all the material that these rich southern regions can supply, all the help that maj' be had from a well-furnished library, all the aid that can be obtained from well-trained attendants and subordinates, and all the stimulus and assistance that consciously and unconscious^ comes from the intercourse of man}' minds giving their best powers to the same work, \u2014 this is the aim of the zoological station. To this object Dr. Dohrn has devoted the last fifteen 3\u2019ears of his life, making even his own important researches a secondary consideration ;","page":479},{"file":"p0480.txt","language":"en","ocr_en":"480\nSCIENCE.\n[Vol. I., No. 17.\nand, having founded the station, he has gathered about him a group of earnest investigators, animated by the same spirit, who form its permanent scientific staff.\nThe station was opened in 1874 ; and the total cost of its building was $85,000, exclusive of the cost of the site, which was given by the Neapolitan municipality. Dr.\nDohrn contributed $60,000 of his own property, and obtained a grant of $20,000 from the German government. The other $5,000 was presented by some of the eminent friends of science in England,\u2014Professor Huxley, Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Darwin, Mr. Balfour, and others.\nThe situation of the building is exceedingly\nPLAN OF GROUND FLOOR, OR AQUARIUM.\n1. Entrance ; 2. Office ; 3. Open space for visitors ; 4. Aquarium ; 5, 6. Passages and staircases for the service of the basins ; 7. Staircase to laboratory ; 8. Main staircase to same ; 0. To basement ; 10. To retiring-rooms ; 11. To engine-room ; 12. Entrances for fishermen and attendants ; 13. Small laboratory ; 14. Working aquarium of the same.\nfortunate ; it stands in the middle of the gardens of the \u2018 Villa nazionale,\u2019 a few rods from the shore ; and from its loggia one looks southward, over the wide expanse of the gulf, to Capri in the distance, westward to the ridge\nof Ponlippo, eastward to the mountains of St. Angelo, while to the north-east the town rises in terraces from the bay, in the form of an\namphitheatre, with the smoke of Vesuvius in the background, rising into the sky, and floating away towards the horizon.\nThe lower floor of the station is occupied by the well-known public aquarium, which consists of thirty tanks, the largest holding two thousand cubic feet of water. The beautiful creatures of the Mediterranean are to be seen in these tanks, living in their natural conditions,\u2014The delicate transparent pelagic animals, the medusae, ctenophores, and salpae, the expanded corals and polyps and tube-worms, with their brilliancy and variety of\nSeaU /-/\nPLAN OF UPPER FLOOR, OR LABORATORY.\n1. Main staircase ; 2. East loggia ; 3. South loggia (both open) ; 4. West loggia, closed by windows ; 5. Large laboratory ; 6. Working aquarium ; 7. Large cabinets ; 8. Iron staircase leading to 10, platform at mid height supported by iron pillars (9) ; 11. Staircase leading to 12, gallery destined for the collections, but at present used as the library ; 13-18. Unfinished rooms attached to the laboratory ; 19, 20, 21. First, second, and third assistants\u2019 rooms ; 22. Great hall Intended for the library ; 23. Lighted court ; 24, 25. Longitudinal and transverse passages through the same ; 26. Vestibules ; 27. Restaurants ; 28. Staircase to aquarium ; 29. Staircase to attic ; 30. Chimney ; 31. Balcony.\nPLAN OF BASEMENT.\n1. West reservoir ; 2. South reservoir ; 3. North reservoir ; 4, 5. Storage basins ; 6. Pipes connecting the reservoirs and basins with the pumps ; 7. Pump-reservoir ; 8. Pumps ; 9. Engine ; 10. Boiler.","page":480},{"file":"p0481.txt","language":"en","ocr_en":"June 1, 1883.1\nS CIE NC JE.\n481\ncolor, and the thousand other creatures of various size, up to the large octopus and the great edible turtle. The aquarium was intended to produce a revenue which should cover a considerable proportion of the expenses of the station, \u2014 an expectation which has not been fulfilled. Nevertheless, it is appreciated In' all who visit it as a source of great delight and interesting knowledge, while it is indispensable to those who work in the station as a means of study and a reservoir of material.\nBeneath the floor of the aquarium is a labyrinth of underground rooms, containing the engines, cisterns, and pumps by which the circulation of water is maintained throughout the tanks and the smaller aquaria in the laboratories above.\nTo the right of the main entrance to the public aquarium is a marble staircase, which the uninitiated are forbidden, in various languages, to ascend. It leads up to the part of the building devoted to scientific studies ; and thus immunity is secured fr\u00e7m all noise or disturbance. The naturalists at work hear only the breaking of the waves, or, at times, the sounds of music from the gardens, and the distant murmur of the city. On the northern side of this second story is the great laboratory, lighted by a row of windows twenty-five feet in height. It is fitted up for twelve workers ; the tables, drawers, and shelves of each being so arranged as to form under a window a kind of alcove, which is thus well lighted from the north, and is fitted up independently with reagents and apparatus. Down the centre of the room is a long aquarium, consisting of two reservoirs, one above the other ; so that, by means of siphons, circulation of sea-water may be kept up in the various vessels which the occupants of the tables use to isolate the animals they are studying, or to contain ova and embryos in course of development.\nBesides this general laboratory, there are twenty small rooms fitted up for the same purpose, each provided with its own apparatus and aquaria.\nThe south side of the large laboratory has two windows opening on a central court lighted by a skylight in the roof, and extending down to the floor of the public aquarium, whose central tanks are arranged around it. A short bridge across this court leads to the library, which corresponds in size to the laboratory, and opens on to a spacious loggia running along the whole south side of the building. The library is well furnished and excellently lighted ; and there is scarcely a work on any branch of biology, classical or recent, or\nany current scientific periodical of reputation, which is not to be found on its shelves. The height and fine proportions of the room are in keeping with the dignity of its function ; and its walls are tastefully decorated with interesting frescos appropriate to the situation and character of the station.\nTo the west of the laboratory and library are the rooms where the material brought into the station is deposited, sorted, and distributed, and where the conservator, Salvatore Le Bianco, and his assistants, preserve specimens for the collection of the station, and for sending to distant laboratories or private investigators. In one of these rooms are the shallow tubs where the contents of the dredges are poured out, washed, and searched by a number of boys ; and the variety of beautiful and interesting creatures to be seen here, everywhere around, produces an enthusiastic delight in the zoologist on his first visit ; and the impression is in no way lessened when he examines the exquisite collection of preserved specimens in Salvatore\u2019s room, and sees the most delicate and sensitive creatures \u2014 corals, alcyonaria, transparent medusae, and ctenophores \u2014 fixed in the fully expanded condition, and preserved in their natural shape. This result is obtained by a different method for almost every animal ; and the successful treatment has been discovered, sometimes by a fortunate idea, but usually by patient and careful series of experiments.\nTHE SPECTRUM OF AN ARG AND BURNERA\nI have been lately requested to determine the distribution of energy in the spectrum of an argand burner, and have been able to do this by means of the apparatus and methods previously employed at the Allegheny observatory for mapping the invisible spectrum of the sun. The results are curious ; and, in the hope that they may also be found useful, I desire to communicate them to the academy. The difficulty in such a determination lies in the mapping of something which is wholly invisible ; and it has not been made before, I presume, in spite of its economical importance, because there has been no means known of measuring this invisible energy, except in a rough way, by the thermometer or thermopile, by a process which gives incomplete results.\nIt was my object not merely to indicate\n1 Read before the National academy of sciences at its Washington meeting, April, 1883.","page":481},{"file":"p0507.txt","language":"en","ocr_en":"June 8, 1883.]\nSCIENCE\n507\nbeneath the cranium. It gives rise to the lower part of the cochlea, the promontory and lower part of the oval window, the round window, the lower arm of thfe posterior semicircular canal, the lower part of the facial canal, the jugular fossa, the carotid canal, and the floor of the tympanum.\nThe mastoid portion of the petrosal is produced, subsequent to the complete coalescence of the prootic and opisthotic, by outgrowths from the posterior and external semicircular canals. The outgrowth from the posterior semicircular canal first shows itself externally in the broad plate of cartilage which forms part of the cranial wall between the squamosal, the parietal, and occipital bones. It makes its appearance as an elliptical islet just in advance of the occipital. In this condition it has been viewed by Professor Huxley as a distinct ossifie centre, to which he has given the name of the epiotic, regarding it as the specially mastoid part of the mastoid portion of the temporal bone. In my preparations, the elliptical islet has appeared as a continuous growth from the most prominent part, outwardly, of the posterior semicircular canal, after the completion of this by the co-ossification of its arms, which spring separately from the prootic and opisthotic. Later, a second element of the mastoid portion of the petrosal, as an outgrowth of the external semicircular canal, makes its appearance as a quadrate islet in the cartilage intervening to the elliptical islet and the squamosal. The two islets quickly unite, and thus together form the mastoid portion of the petrosal ; the notch between them, above, still remaining at the upper extremity of the latter, at birth. From the anterior or quadrate islet, the mastoid process is subsequently developed, and not from the supposed epiotic, as has been asserted.\nThe squamosal and petrosal commonly an-chylose in the external portion of the petro-squamosal suture, near the time of birth ; and this portion of the suture is usually obliterated during the first or second year subsequently. Sometimes traces of it remain as irregular chinks, and rarely the greater extent or the whole of it may be retained, as represented in the accompanying fig. 3, from one of several similar specimens in the university museum. The suture is observed to descend from the notch at the upper border of the bone to the point of the mastoid process ; and it thus indicates that the anterior third of the mastoidea pertains to the squamosal, while the rest alone belongs to the petrosal. The internal portion of the suture, commonly after some years, is\nbut partially obliterated, and frequently remains, to a'variable extent, as a fissure defining the tegmen of the petrosal from the inner surface of the squamosal.\nThe mastoid process, scarcely marked at birth, becomes conspicuous only after a year or two. The mastoid antrum is developed at birth ; but the surrounding mastoid cellules undergo but little development until after puberty.\nThe external auditory meatus is produced after birth. The auditory plate forming its roof is gradually more differentiated from the rest of the squamosal, and its tympanic scute becomes more distinct by the production of spongy substance between it and the roof of the meatus.\nThe floor and sides of the latter are produced from the tympanal ring, which becomes the tympanic plate of the more mature bone. Lateral processes grow outwardly from the ring, expand at the ends, and conjoin to form the auditory process, leaving an aperture in the tympanic plate. The aperture is obliterated about the third oc fourth year, but occasionally is retained as an imperfection, closed by fibrous membrane. From growth downward and backward from the tj\u2019mpanal, the vaginal process and posterior extremity of the tympanic plate are produced.\tJoseph Leidt.\nFig. 3. \u2014 Temporal bone, one-half size, exhibiting the outer part of thepetro-squamosal suture, permanently retained, and indicating the division of the mastoidea into a squamosal and a petrosal portion.\nTHE NAPLES ZOOLOGICAL STATION.1\nII.\nThe fleet of boats belonging to the station, to whose efficient services the constant supply of material is due, consists of two steam-launches and a number of row-boats and sailboats. The larger of the steamers, named, after the great German biologist, \u2018Johannes M\u00fcller,\u2019 was given by the Berlin academy of sciences ; while the smaller, the \u2018 Francis Balfour,\u2019 was bought by the station. These are used for long excursions, being absent in summer sometimes for three or four days.\n1 Concluded from No. 17.","page":507},{"file":"p0508.txt","language":"en","ocr_en":"508\nSCIENCE,\n[You I., No. 18.\nTHE JOHANNES MULLER.\nThe smaller boats are used for shorter distances and for surface-netting, by which is obtained the heterogeneous collection of large and small pelagic animals known as auflrieb, and brought into the station every day in fair weather. A vessel full of the auftrieb is taken to the occupant of each table in order that he may search for free larvae, if he happens to be studying the embryology of animals which leave the egg at an early stage, or may study the many curious pelagic animals which cannot be kept in captivity, and only occur from time to time in the contents of the surface-nets. The larger pelagic animals \u2014 such as large medusae and ctenophores\u2014are separated from the auftrieb for the use of those who happen to be specially engaged in their study. But among the many minute creatures which are to be found in it at various times may be mentioned the winged, free, swimming mollusks of the class Pteropoda, known to the Neapolitan fishermen as farfalle di mare, or sea-butterflies ; the other class of free, swimming mollusks, Heteropods ; the free, tailed ascidians, Appendicularia ; innumerable species of small medusae, \u2014 some adult, some the young stages of the fixed Hydrozoa ; and transparent crustaceans of various sizes of the class Copepoda, which are never wanting.\nThe greatest possible care and attention is given by the attendants, and by the gentlemen of the staff, to the requirements of each zoologist in the station, with respect to material. If unfavorable weather prevents fishing-opera-\ntions, or if the animals required are rare, whatever is at hand in the preserved state is placed at the disposal of the investigator ; and advice as to methods of preservation and treatment, and information as to the breeding-times and seasons of frequency or rarity of the inhabitants of the gulf, are alwaj\u2019s offered with the greatest freedom and courtesy. By writing beforehand, a naturalist about to work at the station may insure having material \u2014 living and preserved, adult and in the young stages \u2014 ready for him on his arrival, so that he can commence his researches at once. But the zoologist who occupies himself at the station is not merely a passive recipient of the benefits of its organization. Every opportunity' is given to him to study its whole working, and to take an active part in the fishing and dredging operations. He is invited to accompany the members of the staff on the steamers on excursions in the bay and to various points on the coast or neighboring islands, \u2014 to the Bay of Salerno, to Capri, to Ischia, \u2014 in order to see how the different kinds of apparatus are worked, and, if he pleases, to descend, equipped in the diving-dress, and examine the bottom of the sea with his own eyes. The beauty of the scenery and climate, the congenial society, and the interest attaching to the operations, combine to render these excursions the most pleasant events in the course of a visit to the zoological station.\nA zoologist obtains the privilege of working at the station by application to some institution","page":508},{"file":"p0509.txt","language":"en","ocr_en":"June 8, 1883. J\nSCIENCE,\n509\nin his own country which has the disposal of a table : in the majority of cases, the application has to be made to the government. The station lets its tables to scientific corporations or to governments at a yearly rental of four hundred dollars each. There are, at present, twenty tables taken, of which the greater number belong to Austria, Germany, Russia, and Itah-. Holland and Belgium have one each, and England has two. There is room in the station for thirty. The rapid development of the -institution is shown by the fact, that, when it was first opened (in January, 1874), only seven tables were taken. About two hundred and thirty biologists\u2014 among them, verj\u2019 many of the highest eminence \u2014 have worked in the laboratories of the station in the nine years of its existence ; and the published works founded on the studies so carried out form a considerable proportion of the total addition to biological knowledge produced during that period. The brilliant researches of Francis Balfour oh the development of elasmobranchs, which formed such a large step in the progress of vertebrate embryology, were carried out chiefly during the time he spent at the table of Cambridge university, in 1874, 1875, and 1877 ; and he always fully acknowledged the debt he owed to the zoological station and its staff. Professor Grenacher commenced his researches on the' eyes of arthropods at the station in 1876,-^researches which resulted in his classical work, which is, up to the present, the principal authority on the subject. The brothers Oscar and Richard Hertwig carried out their interesting work on\nthe histology of the Actiniae at Naples. F. E. Schultze and Oscar Schmidt, two of the principal living spongiologists, have availed themselves of the resources of the station ; and Professor Claus, Dr. Hubrecht, Dr. Spengel, and Dr. Chun are other names whose celebrity in zoology is connected with the institution. Last year an American zoologist, Dr. Whitman, carried out some important researches in the Naples laboratory on the curious parasites-, Dicyemidae.\nThe number of those belonging to the permanent scientific staff of the station is eight, including Mr. Petersen, the engineer, to whose skilful and successful management of the machinery the wonderful regularity and efficiency of all the mechanical arrangements is due. The other seven are biologists who are occupied in the preparation of monographs of various classes, for the series published by the station ; while they divide among them the work connected with the issue of the two periodical publications, and the routine duties of the laboratories. Dr. Dohrn acts as director, and represents the station to the outside world ; while the chief duties of management devolve on Dr. Eisig, to whose devotion and foresight the enterprise owes much of its success. The duties of librarian are discharged by Dr. Brandt, whose name is well known in connection with the recent discoveries that have been made, as to the existence and significance of sj-mbrosis in animals, and who is engaged at present on the monograph of the radiolarians of the gulf. Dr. Lang, in the\nTHE DIVER\u2019S BOAT.","page":509},{"file":"p0510.txt","language":"en","ocr_en":"510\nSCIENCE.\n[Vol. I., No. 18.\ncourse of his work on the turbellarians, has already produced some extremely important papers on their morphology, and the relations of plathelminths generally. The monograph of Dr. Mayer, on the curious crustacean family Caprellidae, has just appeared, and the \u2018 Copepoda \u2019 of Dr. Giesbrecht is rapidly approaching completion. To the two zoologists last named belongs the credit of most of the great improvements in technique which have been invented in the station. The value of these improved methods can scarcely be overestimated. Technical difficulties often stand in\nTHE STATION FISHERMAN.\nthe way of the solution of definite and important questions : before them the investigator is brought to a stand-still, and his advance in the desired direction hopelessly blocked. The discovery of a rapid and certain method of obtaining series of sections, which science owes to Dr. Giesbrecht, has given a new power to research, and enabled investigations to be undertaken which before were impossible.\nThe publications of the station have already been mentioned, but it is well to add a few details concerning them. The monographs are intended to form a series of complete studies of every group of animals existing in\nthe gulf, and to contain a body of accurate information on the anatomy, histology, classification, and relations of marine forms, which shall serve as a sound basis for future investigations. The series includes Algae as well as animals. They may be written in either of the four general^ known European languages. Six have already appeared, the first being the beautiful work of Dr. Chun on the Ctenophorae. One by Dr. Emery has already appeared in Italian ; and the Actiniae of Dr. Andres will shortly be published in the same language. They are published by subscription, of which the annual amount is $12.50, and the number of subscribers, up to the present, is two hundred and sixty. The station also issues a journal for original memoirs of work done in its laboratories, called the \u2018 Mittheilungen aus der zoologischen station,\u2019 which commenced in 1879, and whose three volumes contain already much important work; also a bibliography, called the \u2018 Zoologische jahresbericht,\u2019 in which every paper on biological subjects is not only indexed, but summarized. The latter was commenced in 1880.\nIt will be allowed that the zoological station has already a many-sided activity; that it has done, and is doing, a great deal for biological science ; nevertheless, it is about to take a still farther expansion. A separate laboratory is in course of preparation for the study of comparative physiology, for which nowhere such favorable conditions could be found as will be provided by the resources of the existing station. Every one who is a friend to the progress of biology must wish the Neapolitan station success in its new enterprise, and a continuance of the successful development which has, up to the present, taken place in the original institution.\nEmily A. Nunn.\nEVIDENCES OF GLACIATION IN KENTUCKY.\nThe following notes of observations on glacial action south of the Ohio River are submitted to the fund of evidence of glaciation anterior to the period of the great terminal moraine.\n1. At the crossing of the Kentucky River by the extension of the Kentucky Central R.R., opposite the mouth of Otter Creek, and in Clark County on the north bank of the river, the following fresh section was obtained at the mouth of the railway-tunnel.","page":510}],"identifier":"lit33413","issued":"1883","language":"en","pages":"479-481, 507-510","startpages":"479","title":"The Naples Zoological Station, I & II","type":"Journal Article","volume":"1"},"revision":0,"updated":"2022-01-31T16:23:16.605520+00:00"}