REPORT OF THE 

 DIRECTOR OF THE AQUARIUM 



TO THE BOARD OF MANAGERS. 



THE close of the year 1921 finds the Aquarium well advanced 

 in the improvements undertaken by the New York Zoologi- 

 cal Society with its private funds. The front basement has been 

 deepened, water-proofed, lined with white tiles and provided 

 with light and ventilation by new basement windows. Three 

 low-pressure boilers have been installed and are in use, while 

 electrically-driven rotary pumps have been installed and in part 

 tested. The front basement has thus been transformed into a 

 modern heating and pumping plant. 



By the end of January, 1922, the use of the old heating and 

 steam-pumping plant at the rear of the building can be discon- 

 tinued. The space occupied by it can then be cleared of ma- 

 chinery and made available for additional exhibition tanks. This 

 will permit of an increase of twenty per cent, in exhibition space 

 and will constitute an improvement long desired, but hitherto 

 unattainable. 



Following the improvements made by the Zoological So- 

 ciety, the city, in the last week of the year, made provision for 

 a third story on the front of the building above the present 

 office section. This will provide additional space for adminis- 

 trative purposes, an improvement that has long been needed. 

 The demands made by the public upon the Aquarium as a city 

 museum, increase from year to year and cannot be met without 

 the facilities common to such institutions. A public aquarium 

 as large and well known as the New York Aquarium cannot 

 escape the multifarious services demanded of it. The sight- 

 seeing public, always swarming into the building in great num- 

 bers, is by no means the only class of persons making use of 

 the Aquarium ; there are school teachers with their pupils asking 

 expert guidance ; educational institutions both in and out of the 

 city, requesting special information ; public schools begging sea- 



