264 Mr. P. H. Gosse on keeping Marine Animals and 



succeeded in keeping living plants and animals together ir 

 fresh water, and announces that he is "attempting a similar ar 

 rangement with a confined portion of sea-water, employing some 

 of the green sea-weeds as the vegetable members of the circle, 

 and the common winkle or whelk to represent the Limnece, 

 which in the former case he had found useful in consuming the 

 slime produced by the decay of the vegetable matter. 



Priority of publication is universally acknowledged to give a 

 title to whatever honour attaches to a new discovery, and this I 

 shall not dispute with Mr, Warington. I may be permitted to 

 state, however, that I have for some considerable time been pur- 

 suing experiments on the same subject. 



For several years past I have been paying attention to our 

 native Rotifera, and in the course of this study had kept fresh 

 water in glass vases unchanged from year to year, yet perfectly 

 })ure and sweet and fit for the support of animal life, by means 

 of the aquatic plants, such as Vallisneria, Myriophyllum, Nitella 

 and Chara (but particularly the former two), which were growing 

 in it. Not only did the Infusoria and Rotifera breed and mul- 

 tiply in successive generations in these unchanged vessels, but 

 Entomostraca, Flanari(B, Na'ides and other Anuelides, and Hydra, 

 continued their respective races ; and the young of our river fishes 

 were able to maintain life for some weeks in an apparently healthy 

 state, though (perhaps from causes unconnected with the purity 

 of the water) I was not able to preserve these long. 



The possibility of similar results being obtained with sea- 

 water had suggested itself to my own mind, as it has to that of 

 Mr. Warington ; and the subject of growing the marine Algae 

 had become a favourite musing, though my residence in London 

 precluded any opportunity of carrying out my project. But 

 in the course of last winter, ill-health drove me to the sea-side, 

 and gave me the opportunity I had been long desiring. My 

 notion was exactly that of Mr. Warington, that as plants in a 

 healthy state are known to give out oxygen under the stimulus 

 of light, and to assimilate carbon, and animals on the other 

 hand consume oxygen and throw off carbonic acid, the balance 

 between the two might be ascertained by experiment, and thus 

 the great circular course of nature, the mutual dependence of 

 organic life, be imitated on a small scale. 



My ulterior object in this speculation was twofold. First, I 

 thought that the presence of the more delicate sea-weeds (the 

 Rhodosperms or red families especially, many of which ai*e 

 among the most elegant of plants in colour and form), growing 

 in water of crystalline clearness in a large glass vase, would be a 

 desirable ornament in the parlour or drawing-room ; and that 

 the attractions of such an object would be enhanced by the 



