Abstract
John Sterling Kingsley, Chair of Biology at Tufts College, started the seasonal Harpswell Laboratory on Casco Bay, ME, in 1898. The organization and focus of the new Laboratory was based upon his experience at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA, but prompted by the abundance of “northern fauna” not normally found around Cape Cod. Initial summer research by Tufts faculty and visiting investigators from other institutions centered on invertebrate development, bioluminescence, and vertebrate anatomy, and the field courses and research involved students from a variety of northeastern schools. By 1907, however, courses were no longer being taught, so the Laboratory’s summer investigators could focus on their research. After becoming independent from Tufts in 1913, and seeing a decline in attendance and support during WWI, the administration of the Laboratory accepted an invitation from George Dorr and others to move further north (Down East) on the Maine coast to Salisbury Cove on Mount Desert Island in 1921.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Wiedersheim was an anatomist, made famous by a book (Wiedersheim 1895) in which he presented a list of 86 organs that he deemed “vestigial.” He reached public notoriety later when his conclusions were presented in testimony supporting evolution during the famous Scopes Trial in 1924 (Darrow and Bryan 1925).
- 2.
Handwritten copies of the original recommendation letters and Executive Committee memo are in the Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA. The starting salary was $2000 per year, worth some $58,000 in 2015 (using the Consumer Price Index), approximately 50 % of what a Chair of Zoology/Biology might expect in 2015.
- 3.
Limulus is a primitive arthropod, commonly called the horseshoe crab, and related more closely to spiders and scorpions than crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters. Kingsley’s dissertation provided an extensive developmental and morphological bases for this conclusion. It was published in two parts (Kingsley 1892a, 1893). The complete work is available online as a pdf at Google Books (scanned from a copy of a book at the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology, donated from the Library of Alpheus Hyatt in 1902). For the most complete discussion of this interesting animal, see Shuster et al. (2003).
- 4.
This brief history of Kingsley’s early career is extracted from the extensive obituary written by H. V. Neal, who will become important later in this history. See Neal (1929). A more brief and contemporary summary was published in the History of Tufts College 1854–1896 written by A. B. Start and available at Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 5.
History of Tufts College 1854–1896, p. 140.
- 6.
Professor Hyatt had been a student of Louis Agassiz at Harvard but apparently was not present when Agassiz founded the first marine laboratory in the USA on Penikese Island, near Woods Hole, MA, in 1873. (Jordan 1892). In the 1880s, Hyatt was the curator of the Boston Society of Natural History. The Annisquam Laboratory was funded by the Woman’s Education Association of Boston (WEA) that, along with the Boston Society of Natural History (BSNH), promoted individual, hands-on instruction for teachers of natural science in marine biology. When the WEA felt it could no longer fund the Annisquam Laboratory (1886), and since the area had become relatively polluted, Hyatt met with representatives from the WEA, the BSNH, and representatives from Harvard, MIT, and Williams College in 1887 to “perfect plans for the organization of a permanent sea-side laboratory, to elect trustees and to devise ways and means for collecting the necessary funds.” The laboratory was incorporated in 1888 as the “Marine Biological Laboratory.” Hyatt was the first President (1888–1889) of the Corporation of the MBL. For more complete descriptions of the Annisquam Laboratory and the MBL, see: (Kingsley 1892b; Lillie 1944; Maienschein 1985, 1989; Dexter 1990). For a first-person description of the short life of the Penikese Laboratory, see (Jordan 1892), written by David Starr Jordan, one of the most famous US scientists of the late nineteenth century and Stanford University’s first President (1891–1913). When Kingsley was on the faculty at the University of Indiana during 1887–1889, Jordan was President of that institution.
- 7.
Kingsley (1892b). In this substantial, semipopular article, Kingsley argues “the proper place for our studies must have rocky points; stretches of mud and sand exposed at low tide; currents to bring constantly the pure water of the sea; and such localities are not abundant.” He goes on to describe the format of instruction at the MBL: “The instruction given at the laboratory is largely personal. Each student is carefully watched by the instructors, and naturally beginners receive more attention that those in the upper laboratory. They also have their daily lectures upon the general principles of zoölogy and botany. There are frequently other laboratory lectures upon subjects of more general scientific interest…given in the evening by the laboratory staff or by visiting naturalists, and no lecture course in the country can boast of such subjects treated by such masters.” Somewhat surprisingly (considering Agassiz’s famous dictum to “study nature, not books,” e.g., Maienschein (1989), Kingsley goes on to state: “To the student of to-day books are almost as important as specimens. He needs them to show him not only what has already been found out, so that he need not waste his time in duplicating the labors of some foreign naturalist, but also to show him the structure or development in allied forms, so that with the larger array of facts he can have a basis for interpreting the meaning of his own discoveries.” He ends with what could be a statement from a current, research foundation Development Office: “We have enough colleges and universities; institutions primarily for research are as yet lacking; yet what honor they would reflect upon the man farsighted and public-spirited enough to give them the means of existence!”
- 8.
In addition to the founding of the MBL in 1888 (and the Harpswell Laboratory a decade later), these 30 years saw the origin of many small laboratories that existed for only a few years (e.g., Penikese, Annisquam, Salem Marine Zoological Laboratory in MA, Alexander Agassiz’ lab at Newport RI, etc.) as well as important laboratories that still exist: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island in 1890, Hopkins Marine Station (Pacific Grove, CA) in1892, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (La Jolla, CA) in 1903, and Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory (San Juan Island, WA) in 1904 (e.g., Dexter 1988). For a very complete and personal history of the founding and early history of the MBL, see (Lillie 1944); for a similar discussion of the SIO, see (Raitt and Moulton 1967), which is available as a pdf from the SIO Archives at: http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/hist/caljsioa_gc29r2.pdf
- 9.
There were two marine laboratories at Woods Hole at this point: the MBL and the US Fish Commission Laboratory, which was established before the MBL (in 1885), under the guidance of Spencer Fullerton Baird, who was the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In fact, Baird was instrumental in bringing his friend, Alpheus Hyatt to Woods Hole to start the MBL. The first buildings of the MBL were built next to the Fish Commission Laboratory, and the latter supplied collecting vessels and laboratory animals for investigators in the early years of the MBL (Lillie 1944; Maienschein 1985, 1989).
- 10.
Some 20 copies of this important source were privately printed (letter from Mary Francis Williams to David Wynes, March 11, 1987; Archives of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Salisbury Cove, ME); one is in the Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA, two others are in the Archives of the MDIBL, and copies can also be found at the MBL and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. A somewhat abbreviated version of the work was published in 1987 (Williams 1987).
- 11.
Eastport was then, and is now, about as far as one can go on the coast of Maine before entering Canada. Spencer Baird and his students had worked at both Eastport and Portland, ME, during 1872–1874, but came back to Woods Hole for research in 1875 and the following years (Lillie 1944).
- 12.
- 13.
The laboratory was historically called the Harpswell Laboratory even though it was situated in South Harpswell. South Harpswell is a village in the Town of Harpswell. They are actually on separate peninsulas, both extending into Casco Bay, with South Harpswell to the west and slightly south of Harpswell.
- 14.
Williams (1985), pp. 2–3. The colony had been built, along with common tennis courts, in 1876. It burned down in 1899 (apparently due to a disgruntled employee), but much more substantial cottages were built and still stand as of 2015.
- 15.
- 16.
A copy of the original advertising flier was found in 1983 in the attic of the MDIBL (the successor of the HL) (Williams 1985) and now is displayed in the office of that Laboratory.
- 17.
May 18, 1898. Available at Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 18.
The list of participants in this and succeeding summers at South Harpswell can be found at the end of Williams (1985) and in the Archives of the MDIBL.
- 19.
The unpublished, eight-paragraph Kingsley history was included in a longer, also unpublished, history written by E. K. Marshall, Jr. and reprinted in a more recent volume (Marshall 1998).
- 20.
Could the students have passed the word around campus that studying at the HL was strenuous and primitive, and not a “delightful vacation” as advertised?
- 21.
The original laboratory building (constructed in 1901) was smaller, 24 × 30 ft, with 12 windows and five rooms for investigators and one larger room with three tables for undergraduates. An addition was constructed in 1902 to form the larger laboratory described in 1903 by Kingsley (Williams 1985).
- 22.
- 23.
Letter from Kingsley to Dr. F.W. Hamilton, a Trustee of Tufts College, on Nov. 5, 1901. Original in Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 24.
Kingsley had married Mary Emma Read (called Emma) of Salem, MA, in 1882. They had one child, Mary, who was born in 1883 and graduated from Tufts in 1903.
- 25.
Original in Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 26.
Kingsley was assisted in the teaching by Dr. Fred Lambert, a botanist, from Tufts, who had been a graduate student during the first summer in 1898. After 1907, when formal courses ceased at the HL, Lambert continued research and worked nearly full time in the HL specimen supply business at Basin Pond (one mile from the HL) that he had started. He died young at 60, and it was known that he had wished his ashes to be put into a can and dropped into the bay outside Basin Pond. Apparently, the can was hauled up by a local fisherman some years later (Williams 1985).
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
Williams (1987), p. 87 Williams continues: “The routine activities of the biologists’ wives included walking to the general store for groceries and for mail. (The post office occupied an enclosed space in the store separate from the shelves of food.) Automobiles were unavailable, and only hotels and large boarding houses owned carriages. A local stable, however, rented a horse and buggy for those who wished to visit friends up the road. The children spent busy days on the beach gathering seashells at high tide or making footprints in the mud at low tide. Simplicity and congeniality abounded. Some families lived in tents, and at noon the investigators walked to their lodgings or returned to the tents, where wives and children had a meal ready. Shoptalk was heady in the big room of the laboratory, especially with visiting scientists.”
- 30.
Kingsley (1903), p. 985.
- 31.
This small shark is commonly called the spiny dogfish; now named Squalus acanthias in modern shark taxonomy (Bigelow and Schroeder 1964) and online at http://gma.org/fogm/. This species has been associated with the HL (Kingsley 1907) and the MDIBL since that time, and an outline drawing of this species served as the logo of the MDIBL approximately between 1953 and 2014.
- 32.
Listed as from Malden, MA, with no academic affiliation in the 1903 Attendance List (Williams 1985).
- 33.
Collins (1902) Rhodora was (and is) the journal of the New England Botanical Club, and Collins was an Associate Editor.
- 34.
Wilson (1903). Edmund B. Wilson (Professor; Columbia University) was a leading investigator in the study of cell cleavage and early development from 1880 to 1930. He usually worked at the MBL (Trustee from 1890 to 1939; (Lillie 1944) but was at the HL during the summers of 1902 and 1907, and also at the Mitchell Station (forerunner of the MDIBL) in Salisbury Cove in 1922 (Williams 1985). He is one of the founders of what is now termed “EvoDevo,” which studies the evolutionary history of developmental processes. For a more in-depth presentation of the importance of Wilson’s studies, see Morgan (1940), Rappaport (1996), Gilbert (2008). One of Wilson’s students, Naohidé Yatsu, worked at HL during most of the summers between 1903 and 1907 (Williams 1985, pp. 118–119). He returned to Japan and became the Director of the Misaki Marine Laboratory of the University of Tokyo. His student, Katsuma Dan, became a leading researcher in cytokinesis, worked at the MBL for many years, and visited the MDIBL in the late 1980s (Raymond Rappaport, pers. comm.). A connection between Dan, the Misaki Laboratory, and the MDIBL was described in the Introduction.
- 35.
Anonymous (1909), p. 509. The author reported that “no considerable changes have been made in the equipment, but the library has increased, chiefly by gifts of separata from authors. Of these there are over 500 new titles, while friends kindly gave subscriptions to several American journals.”
- 36.
Kenney and Borisy (2009), p. 842. Morgan had been an undergraduate at the Annisquam Laboratory in 1886 and was a graduate student working at the US Fish Commission Laboratory at Woods Hole in 1888–1889. He moved to the MBL in 1890, and when he retired in 1945, he was the “last surviving personal link between the Annisquam and the Woods Hole Laboratories (Conklin 1947).” He probably heard about the HL from E. B. Wilson, a close colleague at Columbia, who had been at the HL during the summer of 1902 (Williams 1985, p. 118), working on Cerebratulus and returned in 1907. Morgan wrote Wilson’s obituary in 1940 (Morgan 1940).
- 37.
- 38.
Kenney and Borisy (2009), p. 845. Morgan’s work ethic and focus were legendary. Conklin wrote: “On one occasion during the first World War I wandered into his room and said, ‘This War is getting terrible.’ Without looking up he replied, “What war? And yet, he was an anxious as anyone about the course of events. He dwelt in no ‘ivory tower’, but just then he was most interested in counting flies. I think that I have never known any other man who wasted so little time. His work was his life” (Conklin 1947).
- 39.
The proposal from the Carnegie Foundation became so controversial that it was vetoed, but the Foundation agreed to provide an annual contribution of $10,000 per year to the MBL for 3 years, which enabled the laboratory to proceed as an independent facility. For an extensive discussion of this crucial turning point in MBL history, see Lillie (1944) and Ebert (1985).
- 40.
It appears that the senior Mayer may have been an instructor during the first summer of the Penikese Laboratory. There is an Alfred Meyer listed as an instructor in Jordan’s “Agassiz at Penikese” (Jordan 1892), and the list of courses announced for the summer of 1873 included one on “The Physics of the Sea” (Lillie 1944). It was this case, however, that summer didn’t have much impact on his son Alfred G., because neither Penikese nor Agassiz are mentioned in the memoir that the son wrote about this father in 1916 (Mayer and Woodward 1916).
- 41.
For Alexander Agassiz’s biography and importance in the history of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, which was founded by his father, see Murray (1911).
- 42.
Mayer had actually proposed moving the Tortugas Laboratory to the Bahamas, Jamaica, or Maine [emphasis added] soon after its origin because “it was beset by problems: great hurricanes, the necessity of bringing supplies, including potable water, from Key West, and the inability of the Laboratory to accommodate wives and children” (Ebert 1985).
- 43.
- 44.
Neal’s dissertation was entitled, “The segmentation of the nervous system in Squalus acanthias; a contribution to the morphology of the vertebrate head” and was published in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard (Neal 1898).
- 45.
In a short history of the HL that was never published, but quoted in the longer, unpublished, history by E. K. Marshall in 1962 and reprinted in an even longer history in 1998 [Epstein, 1998 #24], Kingsley stated: “[The HL served] as both a summer school for elementary students and a laboratory for investigators, several of whom availed themselves of its facilities. After a few years there arose the conviction that with the limited funds and restricted space there was a certain amount of incompatibility between these two aspects. Investigators were disturbed by the elementary instruction, and it was realized that the return from class-work was very small, that this work was a drawback, and that it was at times a restriction and a hindrance to the studies of the instructors.”
- 46.
During the first two summers at the HL, the Neal family lived in three tents approximately seventy-five yards west of the laboratory. Thus, “the tents were exposed to sun, wind, and the glances of people going to the laboratory, as well as those of the fishermen walking down to their boats.” By 1909, they sought more privacy and moved more than a mile up the main road into a more secluded, wooded position. There they pitched five tents each summer: “one tent served as a combination kitchen and dining room. Dr. and Mrs. Neal slept in a second tent. The twins [daughters Helen and Peggy] had their own, a fourth accommodated aunts, uncles, and guests, while in the smallest tent John [the son] slept alone.” (Williams 1985, pp. 31–32).
- 47.
Neal also served as the Dean of the Graduate School at Tufts from 1924 to 1935.
- 48.
Rand (1944), p. 171. H. V. Rand (Harvard University) was the co-author on Neal’s two famous texts: Comparative Anatomy (1936) and Chordate Anatomy (1939).
- 49.
Rand goes on to say: “The brightness and clarity of his mind, its ability to discriminate between the vitally relevant and the unimportant, its keen appreciation of all that is implied by the complexity, inter-relation, continuity and progressive development in the living world made this reflection far more than a literal delineation of tangled reality.”
- 50.
Quoted in Williams (1985) from a letter in the Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 51.
The cottage was not finished until after 1911 (Williams 1985).
- 52.
Unless otherwise noted, the biographical material on Dahlgren is from the Princeton University Faculty Files and Class Records in the Princeton University Library (Box 39, Folder 59).
- 53.
The Faculty Files and Class Records in the Princeton University Library lists 1898, but Lillie’s history of the MBL lists 1899, with Lillie as his successor in 1900 (Lillie 1944).
- 54.
Princeton University Faculty Minutes, adopted June 3, 1946, article in Princeton Alumni Weekly of September 13, 1946, in Faculty Files and Class Records in the Princeton University Library (Box 39, Folder 59).
- 55.
The publications were also collected together into a book (Dahlgren 1916).
- 56.
- 57.
Williams (1985), p. 120. Morse received his Ph.D. that year, presumably for work on regeneration in the colonial hydrozoan coelenterate Tubularia, some of which was published the same year (Morse 1909). In that paper, Morse indicated that he had pursued his studies at the MBL and HL and was mentored by Lillie (at MBL), Neal, Kingsley and that “the work was started at the suggestion of Dr. T. H. Morgan and the writer is grateful to him for generous aid and criticism.” (Morse 1909a), p. 182.
- 58.
See Fig. 8 in Morse (1909a).
- 59.
Morse (1909b), p. 506. The spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) has internal fertilization and a 2-year gestation period. During the first year, the developing embryos and their yolk sacs are contained in a thin membrane called a candle.
- 60.
Op Cit., p. 507.
- 61.
Op Cit., p. 511. These are, in order: sponge, sponge, hydroid coelenterate, sea squirt, sea anemone, sea star, sea star, brittle star, brittle star, sea urchin, sea cucumber, ribbon worm, polychaete worm, polychaete worm, bryozoan, barnacle, hermit crab, crab, crab, isopod, dog whelk, nudibranch mollusk, sea squirt, sea squirt, and sea squirt.
- 62.
Ibid.
- 63.
Op. Cit., p. 513.
- 64.
Perry’s claim to have reached the North Pole first has been questioned. See, for instance, Henderson (2006).
- 65.
William (1985), p. 69. What follows is taken from Williams (1985, pp. 69–72), including letters and documents referenced there.
- 66.
The July 19, 1911, New York Tribune blared “Margaret Neal…was horribly bitten about the feet and legs by Old King, the leader and most ferocious of the pack…and the remainder of the animals, twelve in all, gathered about and fought to get at her. The keeper of the island…with much difficulty drove the animals off. The little girl, semi-conscious was carried to the Tufts laboratory…where her wounds—twelve ragged gashes—were dressed. She will recover” (Williams 1985, p. 69).
- 67.
Williams indicates that the letter is in the National Archives, Washington, D.C., in the Perry Family Collection, Record Group 401/1 (Williams 1985).
- 68.
This work by Dahlgren (Dahlgren 1914) was the first description of very large, neurosecretory cells that became known as Dahlgren cells. Nearly 50 years later, it was discovered that the axonal extensions were gathered into a neurohemal organ, the urophysis, in the tails of teleost fishes (reviewed in Fridberg and Bern 1967). One of the hormones that were subsequently isolated from the fish urophysis, urotensin II, has been found in the human brain and shown to play significant roles in human health and disease (e.g., Ross et al. 2010).
- 69.
A few years earlier (ca. 1910), Kingsley and Neal had sent out a letter to potential donors, stating: “The Harpswell Laboratory has certainly demonstrated that is has a right to exist. It does not compete with, but supplements, other institutions, as it offers a very rich fauna and flora, greatly different from that found at any other station…In view of these facts it seemed desirable to attempt to raise from $2500 to $3000 for the purpose of putting the laboratory on a permanent basis. For this sum a concrete building can be erected, sufficient to accommodate twenty workers at the same time; needed additions can be made to library and equipment, and a larger motor boat can be had, making it possible to dredge in deeper waters than is possible now… This circular is sent to a number of persons interested in the advancement of biological science with an earnest request for subscriptions of any amount. Those supporting the Laboratory feel that it is accomplishing proportionally as much as any other station in the world, and that it is deserving of a better building and better facilities than it now possesses” (Copy of undated letter from Kingsley and Neal in MDIBL Archives).
- 70.
Williams (1987), p. 89 and Marshall (1998), p. 54. Tufts agreed to support two scientists at a cost of $100 for the summer of 1910. Letter from President Hamilton to the Executive Committee of the Trustees of Tufts College, January 27, 1910. Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 71.
The article ends: “All communications as to places in the laboratory as well as accommodations in the town should be addressed to either Professor H.V. Neal, Tufts College, Mass., or to J.S. Kingsley, Urbana, Illinois” (Anonymous 1915, p. 604).
- 72.
The President of Tufts wrote: “I had been hoping against hope that something would turn up to prevent your leaving us. I feel that it is a great blow to the college…Of course I fully appreciate the great opportunities awaiting you in Illinois, and were I in your place, would probably do as you are doing.” Letter to Kingsley on July 10, 1913. Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 73.
Letter from Kingsley to President Cousins, July 31, 1923. Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 74.
Letter from Russell E. Miller (Tufts University historian and archivist) to Mary Francis Williams, January 18, 1984 (Williams 1985).
- 75.
Letter from Kingsley to President Cousins, July 31, 1923. Tufts University, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA.
- 76.
One might wonder if the letter was the result or the cause of his resignation, since his antagonist was on the Board of Trustees. It is reproduced in its entirety because it gives such a clear picture of the state of the laboratory in 1913, 15 years after its origin. The letter is quoted in Williams (1985, pp. 10–11) as being “in the Archives of Tufts University,” but it had been lost or misplaced, as of Spring 2011.
- 77.
Op. Cit., pp. 11–12. Bates, from Tufts, had been working at the HL since 1902; Johnson, from Johns Hopkins, started coming in 1912 and continued at the MDIBL in Salisbury Cove through 1934 (Williams 1985).
- 78.
Williams (1985, pp. 121–122). Investigators from Tufts, Princeton, University of Illinois, and Johns Hopkins predominated. Drs. Warren and Margaret Lewis, two of the Hopkins investigators, worked at Harpswell during the summers of 1916 and 1917 and then returned to the MDIBL in the 1920s. They became leading figures in cell physiology and cell/tissue culture after that time, and their eldest daughter, Margaret (Ph.D. in Physics) celebrated her 100th birthday in Salisbury Cove in August 2011. See Chap. 2 for more information on the Lewises.
- 79.
Conel first appears on the attendance list of 1914, as a graduate student at the University of Illinois, presumably associated with Kingsley. As we will see, Conel will play a role in the move of the HL to Salisbury Cove in 1921 and the early history of what became the MDIBL. Neal (Director of HL 1914–1917) had signed on with the YMCA and served in Italy in 1918–1919 with the rank of Captain (Rand 1944, p. 173; Williams 1985).
- 80.
- 81.
An especially sad case resulting from this antipathy toward anything German during this period is described in Ebert’s history of the Carnegie Institution and the Dry Tortugas Laboratory and its Director Alfred G. Mayer. “Strong anti-German sentiment in America made [Mayer] ashamed of his German name. An embarrassed Mayer had such difficulties in getting his passport renewed that he had to ask Woodward for letters of recommendation attesting to his loyalty as an American citizen. Later, when he arrived back in America he was subject to an intensive search by immigration officials, who labeled him a ‘suspicious character’ and suggested that he carried wireless equipment for secret transmissions to the enemy. He had no choice. Writing Woodward, he announced, ‘my name has been legally changed from Mayer (a Hun name) to Mayor… The old form makes me bristle whenever I look at it.’” Mayer died as Mayor in 1922, from tuberculosis (Ebert 1985, p. 181).
- 82.
Op Cit., p. 94.
- 83.
Op. Cit., p. 95. Apparently, the suspicions were confirmed, because the man “turned out to be an Alsatian chemist making some dangerous gas. He was jailed.” Op. Cit., p. 97.
- 84.
Op. Cit, p. 96.
- 85.
Op. Cit. p. 97. Joseph Dahlgren stayed in the Navy for many years, including a posting at the Naval Academy in Annapolis as an instructor in French and German in the early 1930s. Princeton Packet, August 5, 1932. Princeton University Library.
- 86.
Neal (1929), p. 570. The Executive Committee of the MDIBL wrote (copied into the minutes of the Annual Meeting of the MDIBL, August 14, 1930): “By the death of Dr John Sterling Kingsley, the Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory has lost its Founder and the science of biology one of its most distinguished representatives. Dr. Kingsley was one of the first to perceive the need of a marine biological station north of Cape Cod. Practically unaided, he raised funds for its first building and for the maintenance of the laboratory during the first quarter century of its existence. His attractive personality and inspiring leadership drew many students to the laboratory. His faith in the future never faltered.” Minutes, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, 1926–1948, p. 85, in MDIBL Archives.
- 87.
“Short Sketch of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, 1898–1924,” attributed to Dahlgren; in MDIBL Archives (Williams 1985).
- 88.
Dahlgren’s letter indicates Kingsley called the meeting of the Board at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia.
- 89.
Henry Eno was a summer resident of Bar Harbor and a major donor (Eno Hall) to Princeton, where Dahlgren taught. So it is probable that his personal connections to Dahlgren were important in the initial recruitment of the HL to Salisbury Cove. George Dorr, another summer resident of Bar Harbor, played a vital role in the origin of Acadia National Park, on Mount Desert Island. Much more will be said of Dorr in Chap. 2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lane_Eno and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadia_National_Park
- 90.
So Dahlgren was planning to reinstate courses at the new site, some 15 years after they had been discontinued at the HL by Kingsley.
- 91.
Mitchell was a very noted neurologist/psychiatrist who had died in 1914. Like many prominent Philadelphians, he summered in Bar Harbor. More will be said of him in Chap. 2.
- 92.
Collecting boats of the HL were generally named after local species. In this case, the Atlantic cod, genus Gadus, was honored. For an interesting treatise on the importance of this species to the discovery and early history of America, see Kurlansky (1998).
- 93.
The cost of the move apparently was covered by George Dorr (1997, p. 12).
Bibliography
Anonymous (1909) The Harpswell laboratory. Science 30(772):517–518
Anonymous (1915) The Harpswell laboratory. Science 41(1060):603–604
Anonymous (1921) The Harpswell laboratory. Science 53(1382):569–570
Bigelow HB, Schroeder WC (1964) Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, vol 53, Fishery bulletin of the fish and wildlife service. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC
Carmichael L (1954) Notes on Herbert Vincent Neal. In: Neal HV (ed) The universe and you. Carlborg-Blades, Laguna Beach, pp xi–xiv
Collins FS (1902) An algologists vacation in eastern Maine. Rhodora 4:174–179
Conklin EG (1947) Thomas Hunt Morgan: 1866–1945. Biol Bull 93(1):14–18
Dahlgren U (1914) The electric motor nerve centers in the skates (Rajidae). Science 40(1041):862–863
Dahlgren U (1916) The production of light by animals. J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia
Dahlgren U (1922a) Can man steal “cold light” from nature? The truth about light producing fireflies and fish, now the object of scientific research, told in a nutshell. Pop Sci Mon August:24–26
Dahlgren U (1922b) Phosphorescent animals and plants. Nat Hist 22:5–26
Dahlgren U, Kepler WA (1908) Principles of animal histology. Macmillan, New York
Darrow C, Bryan WJ (1925) The world’s most famous court trial. Tennessee evolution case. A complete stenographic report of the famous court test of the Tennessee anti-evolution act, at Dayton, 10–21 July 1925. Including speeches and arguments of attorneys. National Book Company, Cincinnati
Dexter RW (1988) History of American marine biology and marine biology institutions. Introduction: origins of American marine biology. Am Zool 28:3–6
Dexter RW (1990) Scientific contributions of the associates at Hyatt’s Anniquam Seaside laboratory: predecessor of the marine biological laboratory at woods hole. Bios 61:33–37
Dorr GB (1997) The story of Acadia national park. Acadia, Bar Harbor
Ebert JD (1985) Carnegie institution of Washington and marine biology: Naples, Woods Hole, and Tortugas. Biol Bull 168(suppl):172–182
Epstein FH (ed) (1998a) A laboratory by the sea. The Mount Desert Island biological laboratory 1898–1998. The River Press, Rhinebeck, NY
Epstein FH (1998b) Ulric Dahlgren, the Wild Gardens of Acadia, and the move to Salisbury Cove. In: Epstein FH (ed) A laboratory by the sea. The Mount Desert Island biological laboratory 1898–1998. The River Press, Rhinebeck, NY, pp 14–21
Fridberg G, Bern HA (1967) The urophysis and the caudal neurosecretory systems of fishes. Biol Rev 43:175–199
Gilbert SF (2008) American precursors of evo-devo: ecology, cell lineage, and pastimes unworthy of the Diety. Theory Biosci 127:291–296
Henderson B (2006) True North: Peary, Cook, and the Race to the Pole. W.W. Norton & Co., New York
Henson MA (2009) Matthew A. Henson’s historic arctic journey: the classic account of one of the world’s greatest black explorers. The Lyons Press, Guilford
Jordan DS (1892) Agassiz at Penikese. Pop Sci Monthly 40:721–729
Kenney KE, Borisy GG (2009) Thomas Hunt Morgan at the Marine biological laboratory: naturalist and experimentalist. Genetics 181:841–846
Kingsley JS (1892a) The embryology of Limulus. J Morphol 7(1):35–68
Kingsley JS (1892b) The marine biological laboratory. Pop Sci Monthly 41:604–615
Kingsley JS (1893) The embryology of Limulus. Part II. J Morphol 8(2):195–443
Kingsley JS (1903) The Harpswell laboratory. Science 17(442):983–986
Kingsley JS (1907) The Dogfish (Acanthias). An Elasmobranch. Guides for vertebrate dissection. Henry Holt and Company, New York
Kurlansky M (1998) Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world. Penguin, New York
Lamb AB (1902) Development of the eye muscles of Acanthias. Am J Anatomy 1(2):185–202
Lillie FR (1944) The woods hole marine biological laboratory. University of Chicago, Chicago
Lloyd JE (1971) Bioluminescent communication in insects. Annu Rev Entomol 16:97–122
Maienschein J (1985) Agassiz Hyatt, Whitman, and the birth of the Marine Biological Laboratory. Biol Bull 168:26–34
Maienschein J (1988) History of American marine laboratories: why do research at the seashore? Am Zool 28:15–25
Maienschein J (1989) 100 years exploring life, 1888–1988. Jones and Bartlett, Boston
Marshall EK Jr (1998) A history of the Mount Desert Island biological laboratory: 1898–1962. In: Epstein FH (ed) A laboratory by the sea. The Mount Desert Island biological laboratory. The River Press, Rhinebeck, pp 52–63
Mayer AG, Woodward RS (1916) Biographical Memoir of Alfred Marshall Mayer 1836–1897. Bio Mem Nat Acad Sci USA 8:242–272
Morgan TH (1891) Embryology of the sea bass (Review). Am Nat 25:1020–1027
Morgan TH (1897) The development of the Frog’s egg. And introduction to experimental embryology. Macmillan, London
Morgan TH (1910) Cytological studies of centrifuged eggs. J Exp Zool 9:593–655
Morgan TH (1940) Biographical Memoir of Edmund Beecher Wilson 1856–1939. Bio Mem Nat Acad Sci USA 21:315–342
Morse M (1909a) The autotomy of the hydranth of tubularia. Biol Bull 16:172–181
Morse M (1909b) The Harpswell laboratory. Pop Sci Monthly 74:504–513
Murray J (1911) Alexander Agassiz: his life and scientific work. Bull Mus Comp Zool Harv 64(3):139–158
Neal HV (1898) The segmentation of the nervous system in Squalus acanthias: a contribution to the morphology of the vertebrate head. Bull Mus Comp Zool Harv 31(7):1–89
Neal HV (1929) Obituary: John Sterling Kingsley. Science 70(1824):570–572
Pauly PJ (2000) Biologists and the promise of American Life. From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Raitt H, Moulton G (1967) Scripps institution of oceanography. First fifty years. The Ward Ritchie Press, San Diego
Rand HW (1944) Herbert Vincent Neal (1869–1940). Proc Am Acad Arts Sci 75(6):170–173
Rappaport R (1996) Cytokinesis in animal cells. Developmental biology series. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Ross B, McKendy K, Giaid A (2010) Role of urotensin II in health and disease. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 298:R1156–R1172
Shuster CN, Barlow RB, Brockmann HJ (2003) The American Horseshoe Crab. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Sturtevant AH (2001) Reminiscences of T.H. Morgan. Genetics 159:1–5
Thomas MS (1963) Tufts Marine laboratory born back in 1901 at South Harpswell. Lewiston J Mag Sect
Wiedersheim R (1895) The structure of man: an index to his past history (trans: Bernard H, Bernard M), 2nd edn. Macmillan, London
Wiener N (1953) Ex-prodigy my childhood and youth. Simon and Schuster, New York
Williams MF (1985) The Harpswell Laboratory, 1898–1920. Unpublished
Williams MF (1987) The Harpswell laboratory 1898–1920. A marine biological station. Maine Hist Soc Q 27(2):82–99
Wilson EB (1903) Experiments on merogony in nemertine eggs, with reference to cleavage and localization. Science 17(430):489–490
Wilson HV (1889) The embryology of the sea bass (Serranus atrarius). Bull US Fish Commun 89:209–278
Winslow GM (1903) Note on the circular swimming of sand-dollar spermatozoa. Science 17(42):153–154
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 American Physiological Society
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Evans, D.H. (2015). Beginnings at Harpswell, Maine. In: Marine Physiology Down East: The Story of the Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory. Perspectives in Physiology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2960-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2960-3_1
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-2959-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2960-3
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)