Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/38

Rh for health, the want of a fixed residence prevented my prosecuting my experiments with sufficient care and perseverance to ensure full success; besides which my ultimate object was rather the study of the habits of marine animals, to which end the Marine Aquarium was merely (or at least principally) accessory.

Finally, the complete success of the interesting exhibition opened to the public last year at the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park adds its confirmation to the practibility of the Marine Aquarium. At the time that these sheets go to press, several of the Tanks contain sea-water which has not been changed for more than seven months; and several of the animals survive, which were placed therein nearly a year ago. The high health, liveliness, and fine condition which they exhibit are patent to every visitor; while the botanist sees with great interest a luxuriant crop of marine plants which have grown in this state of confinement. They are, I believe, exclusively, of the Chlorospermatous Order; Ulva, Enteromorpha, Conferva, Bryopsis, &c. Of the last-named genus a profuse growth enveloping a stone in one of the central Tanks forms an object of surpassing beauty.