THE MARINE AQUARIUM. 3 



November or March, when the shrieking blasts drive 

 fiu'iously lip the Channel, and the huge mountain- 

 billows, green and white, open threatening graves on 

 every side, how welcome would be a safe harbour, easy 

 of access, and placed at a part of the coast which 

 else would be misheltered for many leagues on either 

 * side ! Blessed be God for the gift of his beloved 

 Son, the only Harbour of Refuge for poor tempest- 

 tossed sinners ! We may think lightly of it now, but 

 in the coming day of gloom and wrath, when " the 

 rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds 

 blow," they only will escape who are sheltered there ! 



This visit to Weymouth was immediately connected 

 with the Marine Aquarium. Those of my readers who 

 have honoured my "Rambles on the Devonshire Coast" 

 with their perusal, may remember the experiments I 

 have there recorded, on the making of such an invention 

 practicable in London, and other inland towns, and my 

 anticipations of success. Early in December, 1852, 

 I put myself into communication with the Secretary of 

 the Zoological Society, and the result was the transfer 

 of a small collection of Zoophytes and Annelides, which 

 I had brought up from Ilfracombe, and which I had 

 kept for two months in vases in London, — to one of 

 the tanks in the new Fish House just erected in the 

 Society's Gardens in the Regent's Park. This little 

 collection thus became the nucleus and the commence- 

 ment of the Marine Aquarium afterwards exhibited 

 there. 



It was in consequence of an engagement to supply 



b2 



