Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1894 [PAGE 307]

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308

UNIVEBSITY OF ILLINOIS.

T H E EXPOSITION AQUARIUJU.

r T h i s is the proper place to mention also a very important gift made to the Laboratory by the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, Hon. Marshall McDonald, at the close of the Exposition. Under authorization of your honorable body, as recorded in your proceedings for November 1(5, 1892, I accepted an appointment as" director of the aquarium exhibit of the Commission at the Columbian Exposition, taking charge Jan. 1, 1893, and continuing to serve in t h a t capacity to the close of the Exposition, October 31st. At this latter date, t h e living inmates of the aquarium comprised representatives of fifty-two species of marine and sixty-two species of fresh water animals—about 2.500 specimens in all. I t was t h e earnest wish and hope of the Commissioner and myself t h a t the maintenance of this live exhibit at the exposition—of which it was throughout one of the most attractive features—might result in the establishment at Chicago of a permanent aquarium and biological station; and to this end I was authorized in October to offer the contents of t h e tanks in the aquarium building, with some unimportant exceptions, first to the trustees of the proposed Columbian Museum, and, second, to t h e South Park commissioners of Chicago, under such conditions only as would -ecure the maintenance of t h e establishment and its development as a popular aquarium and a station for scientific research. This offer I made to the trustees of the museum October 12th, and more fully October 23d in the following letter, addressed to Mr. Sidney C. Eastman, secretary of t h e board: * * * <<j beg to jKfid to the representations of my letter of October 12th this formal tender, to the trustees, of the present living contents of the aquarium tanks (together with the supply of sea water in circulation), with the exception of the sea anemones, the viviparous perch, and the specimens of the various species of trout, which are reserved by the commissioner for use elsewhere. This offer is subject to the following i-onditions, intended only to enable me to assure the commissioner t h a t the purposes he has had in view in establishing and maintaining t h e iquarium will be substantially secured: •*It is of course to be presumed and understood t h a t if these collections ire accepted, it will be with the wish and intention of maintaining t h e m is a live exhibit for the public benefit on at least their present scale of number and variety. Such specimens as die in the aquarium during t h e next six months are to be placed in alcohol and turned over the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History for distribution to the public high schools and state educational institutions, according to the law defining the duties of t h a t institution. ••We beg also t h a t the trustees will formally express their intention, which we are satisfied t h a t they entertain, of using their best endeavors tor t h e development of the aquarium as a scientific institution—a biological station, in fact—with the expectation of affording to scientific men, in due season and according to the apparent demand therefor, facilities for t h e study and experimental investigation of the plant and animal life of t h e fresh'waters of this country. To this end we believe it indispensable t h a t the aquarium should be"at all times under the general supervision of an experienced scientific biologist, capable of rightly shaping its general policy, and competent by training and ability to utilize for the advancement' of ( science the abundant opportunities for observation and experiment which such an establishment must afford. "The very short time now available for the organization of an aquarium staff qualified and prepared to take charge of this highly perishable material, crowded as this time must be with an overwhelming multitude of equally urgent affairs, leads me further to request t h a t we may be assured of the appointment, for a period of six months, of an expert superintendent and experienced assistants who shall be acceptable to the commissioner, or his representative, as in every way competent and sufficient