Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/26

14 Russian zoölogist—noted enough if one were to give his name—is taking the opportunity of examining for the first time a clump of living crinoids.

The aquarium is altogether a modern institution, dating back scarcely more than a third of a century. Its practicability appears to have first been prominently brought before the public by an Englishman, Mr. W. Alford Lloyd, who during the sixties took an active part in the founding of the aquariums of Paris (that of the Jardin d'Acclimation), Hamburg, Hanover, and of the Crystal Palace, then the most famous of all. In fact, it was notably due to his efforts that throughout Europe aquariums became fashionable,



to a degree indeed which caused the great cities to vie with each other in their prompt efforts to build and equip them. In those early days the style of the buildings was prevalently grotto-like. To see the fishes one was to be given the impression of actually going deep into the sea by descending first into a cavern, down rock-cut steps to the murmur of trickling (if very artificial) brooks. These early aquariums, of great interest from the standpoint of naturalism, were at first exceedingly popular, amply remunerating their stockholders when organized by private capital. Some of these, however, owing in nearly every instance to injudicious management, came later to deteriorate, and after becoming concert halls, or adding circuslike attractions, have ultimately failed.