J. PISCICULTURE AND THE FISHERIES. 423 



bids fair to outrank all the others. The building on Tuthill 

 Street is 545 feet long, from 160 to 240 feet broad at the 

 broadest part, and 80 feet where narrowest, the height being 

 from 60 to 80 feet. On the ground-floor is a spacious prom- 

 enade, and the tanks are placed around half its length on 

 the north side, and nearly the whole of the length of the 

 south side. These are 31 in number: two containing about 

 40,000 gallons each, one of 12,000, twelve of 4000 gallons 

 each, two more of 1400 gallons, and fourteen each of 270 

 gallons. In addition there will be twelve others, not for 

 public exhibition, but for reserve or hospital purposes, each 

 containing about 400 gallons. The largest fifteen tanks are 

 of masonry, forming part of the building itself. The small- 

 er ones are of slate. The fronts of all are of plate glass, of 

 which there will be about 2000 square feet one inch thick, 

 and 500 feet half an inch thick, all toughened by De la 

 Bastie's process. 



Every water receptacle not made of slate is to be lined 

 with asphalt, and all the pipes are so placed as to be easily 

 accessible for examination for leakages. Beneath the floor 

 of the promenade is an enormous reservoir, looking like three 

 railway tunnels, arched above and below, and holding in all 

 about 700,000 gallons; and from this the water will be 

 pumped into the tanks above at the rate of from 15,000 to 

 30,000 gallons per hour day and night incessantly. To 

 guard against the stoppage of the current from accidents to 

 the machinery, the steam-engines and boilers are doubled. 

 The boilers are much larger than needed by the steam-en- 

 gines, as the former will be used also to warm the building 

 in winter. The water in the tanks will take its temperature 

 from that in the reservoir, and always at a mean between 

 that of the surrounding air of summer and winter. There 

 are eight pumps four for sea and four for fresh w r ater ; and 

 these pumps, with all pipes, taps, valves, gratings, and jets, 

 are to be of vulcanite or hard India rubber. Metal in any 

 form would corrode in time and gradually poison the water, 

 which it is proposed to use indefinitely without change, 

 since, singular as it may seem, the longer a large mass of 

 water is used for aquarium purposes the better it appears 

 to be. 



The great reservoir is divided into nine compartments, 



