PUBLIC AQUARIUMS IN EUROPE. 13 



selves boldly back upon law, because we can interpret human 

 progression, within the limitations by which it must everlastingly 

 be circumscribed, not as an accident, but as part of a gradual and 

 orderly unfolding of cosmic processes, that we can still hold fast 

 to our faith on the one hand, in the permanent significance of 

 duty ; on the other hand, in the fundamental actuality of human 

 aspirations. We said just now that we find inspiration to sow 

 the seeds of action only by reason of our faith in the harvest of 

 results. Well, science holds out no promise of the visionary har- 

 vest of a "far-off infinite bliss"; but it gives us definite assur- 

 rance of what, after all, is of vastly greater consequence to us 

 the steadily growing harvests of the years immediately to be. 

 Little as each more separately can do, that little is thus seen to 

 be well worth the doing; and the old message comes down the 

 ages to us with ever-renewed force" Work while it is yet day, 

 for the night cometh when no man can work ! " 



PUBLIC AQUARIUMS IN EUROPE. 



By BASHFORD DEAN, ' 



COLUMBIA UNIVEBSITY. 



THE life of the sea has ever had a peculiar interest to people of 

 every class and calling the strange and bright-colored fishes, 

 the sea stars and anemones, the rich forests of seaweeds, the 

 ghostly and luminous jellyfishes introduce to their observers a 

 submerged world which bears with it every charm of the unreal 

 and the unknown. A feeling of awe is not absent in the long, 

 dusky corridor of an aquarium, as with hushed voices the visitors 

 are gazing through the bright-colored window^.;, through each 

 they may see the depths of a miniature ocea'i. Here a common 

 interest brings together visitors of every clros, and in the chang- 

 ing crowd are strangely mingled types < i faces refined, illiter- 

 ate, scholarly, rustic all fixed and earnest, absorbed with the 

 brilliance and variety of the ever-c'anging scenes. Within the 

 entrance of a gallery a number o^ ^ailors have long stood motion- 

 less before one of the larger inks, wpaching the undulating 

 movements of the swimmin^^ .*,y and the feeding of a dull-look- 

 ing shark, with perhaps none tb'^ less interest that they have 

 seen these fishes many times bef- j. A few yards away a group 

 of children are visi+ing the r.:;uarium for the first time; they 

 stand spellbound, gazing c n-mouthed at the graceful move- 

 ments of a sea horse ; or if that they have discovered the large 

 eight-armed cuttlefish w^ a is slowly writhing itself into a less 

 conspicuous corner of it - <cky den ? And yonder a gray-bearded 



