Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-08-11
BLOCKADE RECALLS
DAYS OF CIVIL WAR
Fla, Now Under
Guard, States Third City
and important Port.

Probably for the first time since the
stirring days of the civil war we find
southern port blockaded by United
States warships. Happily, however. it
is no crisis brought about by an I'M
compromising demand for the integrity
of state rights, but to prevent a cable
ship entering the port of Miami. the
most Southerly city on the Florldan
! mainland and the third largest in the
state, from the standpoint of popula-
| ton" says a statement just made by
John Oliver La Gorce, vice director of
the National Geograp hic Society.
Nesting beside the beautiful waters
of Biscayne bay and separated from
| the Atlantic only by the peninsula of
Miami beach, the city has rapidly come
into it's own, due to the strategic geo
| graphic location it occupies on the
south Atlantic coast, and If gives prom
| Use to rival Jacksonville as a port OF
call. When one realizes that one-thlrd
| of all the grapefruit in the United
States comes from the county in which
| Miami is situated. and that one-fifth of
! all the animal life in America north
of Panama is to be found in the waters
| of the gulf stream which lave the
golden strand of Miami beach in its
front yard, and with the great poten-
| tial agricultural wealth of the ever
glades at it's back door, small wonder
| that Miami has grown, as shown by the
| last census report, 440 per cent.
Bank Deposits Large.
Three years ago the money on de-
post in the banking institutions of
Miami amounted to s4,000.o00 in the
summer of 1919. to S12.000.000: in
March. 1920, to S17.000.000. and today
the amount is upward of $20,000,000.
Moreover. in permanent population it
has grown in ten years from 5,471 to
29,549. During the winter months
there are nearly as many traffic
cops on it's Well paved streets as
there are in the National Capital ten
times its size
"One of the most important develop
mentS of Miami Beach is the inaugu-
ration and completion of the Miami
Aquarium and Biological Laboratory,
located at the beach terminus of the
wonderful 100-foot cauSeway stretch
ing three miles in length. which spans
Biscayne bay, connecting the city
with the ocean beaches. AS the
scientists generally agree that all
land animals came originally out of
the sea, the study of the myriad forms
of life in the tropical seas will. it is
believed, develop links between the
sea and the land animals that will
add much to the worlds knowledge of
this important question. Since the
question of food has been accentu-
ated as an aftermath of the world
war, the eyes of economists have
turned to the warm seas to develop
the possibilities of it's innumerable
fish life.
No Chance for Specialists.
"Just as the shoemaker's child is
proverbially without footwear, so it
was that there was no aquarium or
biological station on the entire At
lantic coast south of Philadelphia.
and. consequently, no extensive and
adequately equipped and situated in
stitution to which the ichthyologists
of the country could make pilgrim
ages and study at first hand the won
ders of the fauna of the gulf stream.
Heretofore, these specialists in 20
ology travelled to the aquarium at
Naples, Italy. and to other European
simply because there was
nowhere in the warm seas surround
ing the southern part of our own con-
tinent where they could have the |
means at hand to pursue their highly |
important work.
With the completion of the Miami |
however, it opens to the |
scientists most acceptable oppor-
tunity, for not only is it located only |
forty hours from New York or Chi
cago, but in the waters of the gulf
stream are to be found practically all
the forms of fish life and ocean fora
that have been discovered in the
and many others in |
addition.
Only month or two ago an entirely
new species of tuna, one of the most |
valuable food fishes in the world, was
located and described by the director
of the Miami aquarium, and if these
great fishes of the horse mackerel
family can be developed in CONNER
cial way it will have an interesting
bearing on the problem of lowering
the high cost of living"