Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 117 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 117 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885.

The reader now knows the principal phases of the increases and improvements through which the Roscoff station has passed.  If, with the plan before his eyes, he will follow us, we will together visit the various parts of the laboratory.  The principal entrance is situated upon the city square, one of the sides of which is formed by the buildings of the station.  We first enter a large and beautiful garden ornamented with large trees and magnificent flowers which the mild and damp climate of Roscoff makes bloom in profusion.  We next enter a work room which is designed for those pupils who, doing no special work, come to Roscoff in order to study from nature what has been taught them theoretically in the lecture courses of schools, etc.  There is room here for nine pupils, to each of whom the laboratory offers two tables, with tanks, bowls, reagents, microscopes, and instruments of all kinds for cabinet study, as well as for researches upon animals on the beach.  Here the pupils are in presence of each other, and so the explanations given by the laboratory assistants are taken advantage of by all.  At the end of this room, on turning to the left, we find two large apartments—­the library and museum.  Here have been gradually collected together the principal works concerning the fauna of Roscoff and the English Channel, maps and plans useful for consultation, numerous memoirs, and a small literary library.  The scientific collection contains the greater portion of the animals that inhabit the vicinity of Roscoff.  To every specimen is affixed a label giving a host of data concerning the habits, method of capture, and the various biological conditions special to it.  In a few years, when the data thus accumulated every season by naturalists have been brought together, we shall have a most valuable collection of facts concerning the fauna of the coast of France.  Two store rooms at the end of these apartments occupy the center of the laboratory, and are thus more easy of access from the work rooms, and the objects that each one desires can be quickly got for him.

[Illustration:  FIG. 2.—­INTERIOR OF ONE OF THE STALLS FOR STUDY.]

After the store rooms comes what was formerly the class room for boys, and which has space for three workers, and then the former girls’ class room, which has space for eight more.  Let us stop for a moment in this large room, which is divided up into eight stalls, each of which is put at the disposal of some naturalist who is making original researches.  Fig. 2 represents one of these, and all the rest are like it.  Three tables are provided, the space between which is occupied by the worker.  Of these, one is reserved for the tanks that contain the animals, another, placed opposite a window giving a good light, supports the optical apparatus, and the last is occupied by delicate objects, drawings, notes, etc., and is, after a manner, the worker’s desk.  Some shelving, some pegs, and a small cupboard complete the stall.  It is unnecessary to say that the laboratory furnishes gratuitously to those who are making researches everything that can be of service to them.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.