268
rnn SEAS
The costs of equipping and running such a ship are heavy
and beyond the means of the private individual.
A few
fully equipped research vessels are regulârly employed bv
the governments of various countries for routine research
in the area of the great sea sheries (Plate 97) ; occasional
expeditions are also sent out to study conditions in the open
ocean,
nanced either by governments or private sub’
scription.
But this is not to say thatresearch cannot be carried
out at sea without a large steam vessel.
Much information
’
of the most fundamental importance has been gained by
working frOm small sailing or motor driven craft.
Many
of
the
basic
principles underlying marine biological
phenomena have only been discovered by exact and minute
study within only a small area of the sea, and to this end
a small boat equipped only with the necessary apparatus
for some special branch of research is all-sufcient.
There remains the marine laboratory, accounts of some
of which have been given in the rst chapter.
Their
impôrtance in oceanographical research cannot be over—
estimated.
Much has yet to be done in the way of.
description of the liÏe:hist0ries of many animals, and the
different stages of development have to__…be carefully drawn
'
in order that_they may—_ be recognizèd when taken in
_
collectiohab‘ÿ; future workers. Under laboratory conditions
even the mostdelicate animalscan -be'reared from the egg
and théir'_ identication thus becomes Certain. Other
‘
.
fundamental problems can be tackled in the 1ab'oratory
and mention may be made here of .one_concrete example. -
'
It has been the aim of
reSearch workers to get
as
near Î'à true evaluation of the sea as possible. 'By
f
=
counting the planktonic organisms in a given volume of
Water after centrifuging it Was found that there were
_,fourteen organisms in & cubic centimetre’of water taken