24 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



basement floor has been devoted to the interests of the general 

 visitor, and a well-chosen collection representing the Channel 

 fauna can be studied in its well-arranged tanks. The important 

 work of the station in connection with the British fisheries, added 

 to its exceptional advantages in collecting material, gives Plym- 

 outh an important rank among marine aquariums. 



Paris. At Paris the Aquarium of the Trocadero was in its 

 day for it stands among the oldest regarded as the foremost of 

 Europe. At present, however, its condition is somewhat degen- 

 erate, and it is apt, partly on this account, to give the critical 

 observer an unfavorable if not disappointing impression upon 

 his first visit. It is ill kept, wet, and untidy ; its tanks are poorly 

 cared for and very imperfectly stocked ; and the general absence 

 of attendants has permitted many attempts at diamond writing 

 on the costly glass plates of the tanks. These defects, however, 

 do not prevent the visitor from finally recognizing the interest- 



Berlin Aquarium The Three Grottoes. 



ing features of the aquarium. Its plan of construction, as in the 

 earlier designs, is typically grottolike. Its main hall is subter- 

 ranean, and the tanks appear at the surface amid a thicket of 

 overhanging bushes, like a ring of natural pools. The public 

 entrance is cavernous a descent of rough-hewn rock steps, mar- 

 gined by clumps of ferns and a small but noisy waterfall. The 

 main corridor seems particularly dark and cool, none the less so 

 when the eye comes to note the row of tank outlines and sees in 

 their bluish water the chilly movements of trout. The corridor is 

 ring-shaped, its side walls consisting of the faces of large aquaria, 

 nine in the peripheral margin and two in the central, the latter 

 separated by an alleyway in the line of the diameter of the ring. 

 The great height of the tanks is particularly noteworthy ; in some 



