CHAPTER VII. SCANDINAVIA. Norway with its thousands of miles of seacoast, its extensive maritime trade, its great fisheries, its sheltered fiords, and its enterprising people might well be expected to be the home of biological stations. Though there is but a single university in the land there are three well equipped marine stations, at Bergen (1891), Dröbak (1894), and Trondhjem (1900), respectively, and a fisheries bureau actively engaged in marine research. The popular interest in the fisheries has played an important part in furnishing a basis for the existence of the stations, but the economic factor has had little to do with their organization and administration, save at Trondhjem, where a plaice and trout hatchery is combined with the station. The sea-fish hatchery at Flödevig (1882) has no formal biological station attached to it. The central laboratory of the International Commission for the Investigation of the Sea (1902) was discontinued in 1908. The funds for the establishment of the Norwegian stations have been derived in the main from the profits of the state liquor business or braendevinssamlag, supplemented by many minor gifts from savings banks and public-spirited citizens. Their upkeep is drawn, in part, from the same sources and from the funds of scientific organizations and the cultus ministerium. The Swedish marine biological station interests have, from the first, all been concentrated in one station at Kristineberg (1877), controlled by the Academy of Sciences, supplemented in recent years, in hydrographical lines, by Professor Pettersson's station hard by, at Bornö. It was not until 1909 that a formal fresh-water station was opened in Sweden, at Aneboda. The location of Copenhagen upon an island and the easy access to Baltic shores and waters has made unnecessary any formal marine research station in connection with the University of Copenhagen. The fisheries interests, however, in 1889 opened a scientific bureau with a biological station for fisheries investigations connected therewith, now located at Nyborg. A fresh-water station, first opened in 1898 as a summer research station, has become one of the most productive centers of investigations in limnology in Europe, though its material equipment is meager. The large Danish interests in the fisheries, especially about Iceland, led Denmark in 1902 to take a prominent part in the work of the International Commission for the Investigation of the Sea, and her neutral territory and central location made Copenhagen the natural choice for the location of the central bureau of this international commission. BIOLOGICAL STATION AT BERGEN. Director, Candidat Bjorn Helland-Hansen. Telegraph address: Biologen, Bergen. The biological station at Bergen owes its origin largely to the efforts of Prof. Fr. Nansen and Dr. J. Brunchorst. A legacy of $100 to found a marine aquarium, from a physician, Wilhelm Martens, led to the establishment by Nansen, then director of the Bergen Museum, of several small aquaria in the building. The popular interest aroused by these led Professor Mohn at the banquet held at Bergen in honor of the Norwegian North Atlantic Expedition, to urge the establishment of an aquarium. Later Doctor Nansen upon his return from Naples took up the matter and secured from "Det nyttige Selskab" a grant of 1,000 kronen for a zoological station at Bergen. The agitation for a zoological garden in the new Nygaardsparken, in 1890, gave an occasion for Doctor Brunchorst to continue the propaganda for an aquarium, seal park, and biological station, a movement which culminated in that year, at the banquet in honor of the sixtieth anniversary of Dr. D. C. Danielssen, director of the museum, in a subscription of 10,000 kronen for the station. In the following year the movement at Christiania for the foundation of the station at Dröbak led the citizens of Bergen to increase their gifts for the Bergen station to 24,000 kronen. Grants from societies and institutions increased the amount to 40,000 kronen. The aquaria and seal park were formally opened to the public on November 6, 1891, and the station was completed at a cost of 52,000 kronen for the whole plant. It was occupied early in the following year with Doctor Brunchorst as director. He was succeeded in 1901 by Dr. O. Nordgaard, who continued at the post till 1906, when it was taken by Mr. B. Helland-Hansen, the present director. The staff of the Bergen station consists of the director and temporary assistants employed from time to time in chemical, hydrographical, and biological work, a collector and keeper, and a boy. The collector and preparator, Nils Glimme, has been with the station since its foundation and is favorably known to many zoologists as the Lo Bianco of the north. The organization and administration, as well as the history of the station, are closely interwoven with that of the Bergen Museum. The station as a scientific organization is a quasi branch of the museum, housed in a building built by private subscription on land belonging to a private park. The title to the buildings resides in the museum, but the city of Bergen provides annually for the repairs and improvements on the buildings and grounds. The director of the station is appointed by the board of directors of the museum with the approval of the minister of education. This board of directors consists of ten members, two appointed by the Norwegian Government, and the remainder elected by the large membership of the Bergen Museum Association. The affairs of the station are managed solely by the director working in consultation with a committee of three appointed from the directors of the museum. This highly centralized form of organization affords abundant room for the initiative of the administration and provides for a continuous policy with at the same time responsibility to and consultation with a superior advisory body represented by but few members. The station has no endowment. The budget for 1907 was as follows: Receipts and expenditures, Bergen biological station, 1907. The station is located on Puddifiord, a small branch of Byford, a little over a mile from the market, and is easily reached from the quays by electric tram. It is situated at the edge of Nygaardspark, adjacent to the navy-yard, on a small flat just above tide level, and is about 70 m. from the water's edge. Its grounds contain 3,789 sq.m. and include, beside the station building, an irregular seal pond and a one-story workshop and store building 5.3 by 19.5 m. The Bergen station (Pl. LI, A) is a two and one-half story wooden building 12 by 30 meters, on foundations 0.5 m. above high water. Its main axis runs southeast and northwest. The first floor contains the vestibule and the public aquarium room (5.5 by 10 m.), pump room, and the receiving and sorting room. The aquarium room is lighted only through the aquaria, giving a grotto effect. The tanks are arranged upon three sides of the room; three and five large ones, respectively, upon the sides and four smaller ones at the end. The floor and sides of the large aquaria are of solid masonry laid up in cement. The tanks are of several sizes. The two largest ones are centrally located on either side and have a length of 4 and 3.5 m., respectively, and a width of 2.75 m. The lateral ones upon the south are 2.6 by 2 m. and the four smaller ones upon the south 1.3 by 1.5 m., respectively. The depth of the water is 1.1 m. The fronts are of heavy plate glass 22 mm. thick, set in red-lead cement in iron frames. The four small aquaria at the ends of the room are 90 cm. long by 62 cm. wide by 54 cm. deep. They are in iron frames, with wooden base, and glazed on four sides. Through the center of the room is a bank of six aquaria, 80 by 62 by 54 cm., with overhead gas lights. The pump room (2.3 by 5 m.) communicates directly with the passageways (3 by 12.4 m.) above the tanks. The outer wall of the attendance gallery is glazed throughout with vertically placed semiopaque ribbed glass for lighting the aquaria. The receiving room (5.4 by 8.64 m.) is provided with Dannevig hatchery boxes, wooden fish-tank 1 by 3 m., and wooden sorting-table tank 0.7 by 4.4 m. The second floor contains all of the laboratories. A chemical laboratory (4.2 by 7.4 m.) and a director's office and laboratory (4.8 by 7.4 m.), containing two cubicals (2.5 by 3 m.) and a small reference library, are in the eastern end of the building and the main laboratory (8 by 12.8 m.) in the western end. This laboratory contains four cubicals (2.5 by 3 m.), a central aquarium rack (1.5 by 8 m.) with overhead salt and fresh water supply, slate shelf for glass and wooden aquaria (Pl. LI, B), and lead-lined base with sloping bottom and central drain channel. The fresh-water supply has a special filter and constant-pressure reservoir. Upon the south side of the room there is a continuous work table with desks for four persons |