REPORT OF THE 

 DIRECTOR OF THE AQUARIUM 



TO THE BOARD OF MANAGERS 



THE position occupied by the New York Aquarium among the 

 pubHc museums of the City is not an enviable one. Confined 

 within its century-old walls and limited in exhibition space to 

 the original one hundred tanks, its growth is restrained as eff'ec- 

 tively as that of a crustacean unable to molt its old shell. Nor- 

 mal development, such as has attended the other city museums, 

 has been denied it in spite of the fact that in visitors it is far 

 in the lead. 



Various plans submitted for its improvement from time to 

 time have been approved — and placed on file. The present out- 

 look is no brighter than it was before the war. 



A material increase in exhibition space is possible without 

 encroachment on the limited territory of Battery Park, while 

 the daily operation of the mechanical department is still conduct- 

 ed under conditions verging on the intolerable. A disadvantage 

 of long standing is a fire room subject to serious flooding during 

 the neap and spring tides of each month. 



At such times the firemen wear rubber hip boots and shovel 

 wet coal into the furnaces from half submerged wheelbarrows. 

 When coal wagons arrive at such times it necessitates the delay 

 of wagons and men until the tide ebbs, entailing serious addi- 

 tional expense, at the rate of $3.80 a day with each coal trimmer's 

 time charged against the Aquarium. During a recent high tide 

 the wagon and four men were detained an hour and a half. 



On April 11, the water rose to within two and a half inches 

 of the furnace grate bars. Three inches more of rise would have 

 put out the fires and stopped all pumps. This perpetually harass- 

 ing condition can be corrected only by the removal of the entire 

 mechanical department to the unused basement at the landward 

 side of the building, where it can be protected from tbe sea tides. 

 It is a change which has so far been urged without eff"ect. 



