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experiments were required to be performed for the special advan- 

 tage of those who would reap both glory and profit by them, they 

 could hardly expect the directors of a private company to carry 

 them out for their especial benefit. If students required facilities 

 for watching development, or for pursuing histological enquiries, 

 why did not those of them wlio were Fellows of the Zoological 

 Society bring their influence to bear upon the council of that 

 society, and induce them to fit up tanks and attach to their own 

 institution an aquarium and laboratories, where observations might 

 be carried on for and by the fellows of that and kindred societies. 

 He might add that, while he had not asked for any facility for study 

 or observation beyond that which any student or visitor could obtain 

 for himself, while walking through the corridors and watching the 

 inmates of the tanks, he knew that scientific men of the highest 

 eminence in their respective departments of science and natural 

 history had been and were still being supplied with the material 

 for carrying out and investigating problems of the highest 

 character in matters relating to embryology, morphology, and 

 histology. 



In the management of the Grand Aquarium, where many 

 hundred thousands of gallons of water were concerned, one of two 

 plans had to be adopted to keep the water in a state conducive to 

 the health and life of the inmates of the tanks, viz., either a 

 circulation of water from tank to tank, or a system of aeration of 

 each individual tank. In some places the former plan had been 

 ti-ied, especially in the small and easily managed Crystal Palace 

 Aquarium, but at Brighton there were practical difficulties in the 

 way of carrying out a perfect system of circulation : consequently 

 aeration and the isolation of each tank was tried with a marked 

 success, and with this manifest advantage, that while most of the 

 tanks individually contained as much water as was found iu the 

 whole series of tanks in some aquaria, others were of such enormous 

 dimensions that they were actually oceanic, when compared with 

 the tiny table tanks in which a circulation (supplemented by 

 aeration) was kept up. The first and greatest advantage of 

 aeration proper over circulation was this, that whatever took place 

 in any particular tank was confined to it, and could be watched and 

 observed. So that if animals were hatched out or plants made 

 their appearance, instead of the doubt as to what they were, or 



