aay @ae 
THE MIDLAND NATURALIST. 
“Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher.” 
A MARINE AQUARIUM.* 
BY PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, F.R.S. 
Since you wish to know some details of the construction and 
working of my new Marine Tank, I send you the following notes. In 
the spring of 1876, I determined to erect an Aquarium, the water of 
which should be in constant circulation ; and I decided to adopt the plan 
of the Crystal Palace Aquarium, viz., that in which the ratio of the 
water in the show-tank to the water in reserve unseen, is as 1 to 5. 
My old kind friend, Mr. W. Alford Lloyd, contemporary and fellow 
labourer from the first in aquarian development, gave me the invaluable 
aid of his counsel in every step of the work; ever suggesting and 
improving, as it went on, with a zeal which could not have been 
exceeded if the scheme had been hisown. The mechanical contrivances 
and fittings were supplied by the eminent engineers, Messrs. Leete, 
Edwards, and Norman, to whose courtesy, skill, and thoroughness of 
work, I bear willing witness. The Tanks were made and put together, 
and the whole erected and set a-going, by mechanics of the place. 
In the servants’ front of my house was an apartment used as a 
lumber room, whose floor was about 12 feet from the ground, with a 
window looking N.W. ‘This window I took out, and enlarged, for the 
reception of the show-tank (henceforth to be distinctively the ‘“‘ Tank”) ; 
and the room itself was dubbed the “‘ Aquarium.” 
The window looked upon a yard, across which was an out-house 
used as a coal-cellar. The farther corner of this house I excavated, for 
the reception of a strong slate tank (the ‘ Reservoir”), which was 
sunk so that its top was level with the ground. 
Another slate tank (the ‘“‘Cistern”) was placed within the roof, 
immediately over the Tank, resting partly on the summit of the stone 
wall of the house, and partly on the rafters, which were strengthened 
for the purpose. 
* In a letter to Mr. William R. Hughes, F.L.S., Birmingham. 
