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.
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.
Four of these stalls are situated to the north, with a view of the sea, and the other four overlook the garden. They are separated from each other by a simple partition, and all open on a wide central corridor that leads to the aquarium. Before reaching the latter we find two offices that face each other, one of them for the lecturer and the other for the preparator. These rooms, as far as their arrangement is concerned, are identical with the stalls of the workers. The laboratory, then, is capable of receiving twenty-three workers at a time, and of offering them every facility for researches.
FIG. 3.—GENERAL VIEW OF THE ROSCOFF LABORATORY.
The aquarium is an immense room, 98 ft. in length by 33 in width, glazed at the two sides. It is at present occupied only by temporary tanks that are to be replaced before long by twenty large ones of 130 gallons capacity, and two oval basins of from 650 to 875 gallons capacity, constructed after the model of the one that is giving so good results at Banyuls. At the extremity of the aquarium there is a store room containing trawls, nets of all kinds, and mops, for the capture of animals. Here too is kept the rigging of the two laboratory boats, the Dentale and Laura. Above the store room is located the director's work room.
A wide terrace separates the aquarium from the pond. This latter is 38 yards long by 35 wide. Thanks to a system of sluice valves, it is filled during high tide, and the water is shut in at low tide, thus permitting of having a supply of living animals in boxes and baskets until the resources of the laboratory permit of a more improved arrangement. This basin is shown in Fig. 3. It is at the north side of the laboratory as seen from the beach. Here too we see the aquarium, the garden, and a portion of the shore that serves as a post for the station boats.
We must not, in passing, fail to mention the extreme convenience that the proximity of the aquarium work room to the pond and sea offers to the student.