Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1914 [PAGE 160]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[January 7,

REPORT OF T H E DIRECTOR OF T H E STATE LABORATORY OF NATURAL HISTORY.

Professor Stephen A. Forbes, Director of the State Laboratory of Natural History, presented the following report of the work of the State Laboratory during the past two years. This report was received for record.

January 6, 1913. To the Board of Trustees, University of Illinois: The operations of the State Laboratory of Natural History have lately been directed to a careful, detailed study of the plant and animal life of the Illinois River, including, of course, its fishes, with special reference to the conditions produced by reclamation projects, the development of industrial operations on its •banks and in its neighborhood, and the contamination of its waters by great cities now using it as an outlet for their sewage and manufacturing wastes. We have also given much attention to the economic values of the birds of the State as shown by a careful census of its different species in different situations in all parts of Illinois and in the various seasons of the year. In our Illinois River work we have had the advantage of cooperation with the Chemical Water Survey of the State, with the Illinois State Fish Commission, and with the United States Bureau of Fisheries, the United States Bureau making to us a grant of funds towards the expenses of the work, and the Fish Commission giving us the use, for special purposes, of parts of its equipment including the steamer "Illinois" and the fish hatchery at Havana.. This river work has given us the data, obtained by.many chemical analyses of waters and sediments and by systematic and long-continued collections of plants and animals from the waters, shores and bottom of the stream, from an intelligent discussion of the whole system of life on the upper part of the river under present conditions; and a preliminary report of these results is now in course of preparation. While similar work has lately been done on other rivers, particularly in Germany, there is no other which presents similar conditions to those of the Illinois, and we are certain to derive, from a study of it, some novel and important contributions to aquatic biology, and to a knowledge of, the effects of various classes of contamination upon a flowing stream. The bird census data have all been completed, tabulated, and prepared for description and discussion, and are now in the hands of one of my assistants who will share with me the responsibility for a final report. A considerable part of the appropriations of the laboratory goes to the care and maintenance of the large collections we have accumulated during a long course of years, and likewise to the care and improvement of our library, which has become very valuable both for our own work and for the use of the biological departments of the University. Under the new arrangement the library is now well placed and well cared for; but the collections are largely out of use, for lack of room and furniture for their systematic arrangement in an accessible place where they might be resorted to for reference and special study. Whenever the proper room and suitable cases can be provided by the University, I shall be pleased to bring together a selected series of these specimens, and to arrange them in such a way that they can be as readily referred to by students and instructors as are the books in the library. This, I am sure, will be a great help particularly to the instructional staff and advanced and graduate students, and would decidedly stimulate Work on the biology of the State in several directions. Indeed, I think it would bring to the University high school and college teachers of biology, who could find there materials and facilities for a study of our local fauna, and of some parts of our aquatic botany also, which are not now open to them anywhere in the country. I should like to do substantially the same thing with the entomological collections under my control, made partly at the expense of the State Laboratory funds, but mainly from those of the State Entomologist's office. These should be completely determined, the unclassified material should be incorporated in the collections, and the whole placed in a fireproof room equipped with steel cases and pestprOof drawers, where it would be. accessible to all entitled to its use and be at the same time safe against destruction. The invaluable and largely irreplaceable collections of the-Natural History Survey are now all in the old part Of the Natural History Building, where they are subject to destruction by fire; the fireproof part Of the building being mainly assigned to offices, classrooms, laboratories and the like, some of which might well be transferred to the less safe part of the building. I am now working On an appropriation of $10,000 per annum,, of which $8,000 is for the expenses of the Natural History Survey, and $2,000 is for the publication of bulletins and reports. This appropriation comes at present, as you will remember, from the State treasury, and does not pass into the possession of the Treasurer of the University. It has provided during the last two years for the maintenance and improvement of our library, for the care of our large collections and the determination of new material, for the replacement and repair of equipment, for the field and investigation work of the Illinois River Station, for the preparation of manuscriptron the bird census of the State, arid for salaries of supervision, I should like, during the coming two years, to be able to prepare for publication the results of bur river work to date, arid to continue this work down the lower jjart of the stream in order that the biological system of the river may finally be treated as a unit. I should next like to undertake to bring together, to fill out, and to publish the more important product of all our survey operations in a way to present it as a finished piece of work by the centennial year, 191?. To enable me to carry the work forward on such a plan, it will be rieces&ary to increase our present appropriations to a minimum stim of $15 000 per afinum,