62 Biology in America 



of duplicate sets of specimens to schools and colleges through- 

 out the country. It also fills an important place as a conven- 

 tion center, not only for the scientific societies of Washington, 

 but for national and international gatherings as well. 



Another group of biological institutions are the zoological 

 and botanical gardens and aquaria, upon the possession of 

 one or more of which nearly every city of any size in America 

 prides itself. 



Established primarily for purposes of display, some of 

 these institutions have performed a much more important 

 service in adding to our knowledge of the animals and plants 

 which they contain. A brief account of a few of them will 

 serve to illustrate their place in American biology. 



A leader in this, as in other lines of science, Philadelphia 

 established a zoological garden as early as 1859. Along the 

 banks of the Schuylkill Kiver in Fairmount Park are housed 

 the extensive collections of the Zoological Society, which are 

 supported in part by the city, in part by memberships and 

 partly by paid admissions to the garden. The grounds of the 

 Society and its financial means are too small to admit of 

 either the best enclosures for its animals or their proper 

 scientific study. It furnishes considerable material however 

 to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and 

 maintains a pathological laboratory for the study of diseases 

 infecting its stock. 



In 1807 the United States built a fort called the Southwest 

 Battery, and later Castle Clinton, on the lower end of Man- 

 hattan Island, from which this section of New York has 

 derived its name of "the Battery." In 1823 it was given 

 to the city for an amusement hall known as Castle Garden, 

 which welcomed several presidents and other distinguished 

 visitors, including the Hungarian patriot, Kossuth; and its 

 walls frequently echoed the wonderful notes of Jenny Lind. 

 From 1855 to 1890 over 7,500,000 immigrants passed through 

 its doors. In 1896 it became a public aquarium, passing in 

 1902 under the control of the New York Zoological Society, 

 which was chartered in 1895. "While the housing and equip- 

 ment of the aquarium are wholly inadequate, it nevertheless 

 maintains one of the largest and best aquaria of both salt 

 and fresh water fishes in the world. 



The Zoological Society maintains gardens in Bronx Park, 

 in New York, which have in a few years joined the ranks of 

 the leading zoological gardens of the world, and share with 

 the National Zoological Park in Washington the first place 

 for institutions of this kind in America. 



The old style zoological garden was an animal prison 

 where animals large and small were confined in cages just 



