THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY AT 

 NAPLES 



M 



THE AQUARIUM 



ANY tourists who have gone to Naples within 



recent years will recall their visit to the aquari- 

 um there among their most pleasant experiences. It 

 is, indeed, a place worth seeing. Any Neapolitan will 

 direct you to the beautiful white building which it oc- 

 cupies in the public park close by the water's side. 

 The park itself, statue-guarded and palm-studded, is 

 one of the show-places of the city; and the aquarium 

 building, standing isolated near its centre, is worthy of 

 its surroundings. As seen from the bay, it gleams 

 white amid the half -tropical foliage, with the circling 

 rampart of hills, flanked by Vesuvius itself, for back- 

 ground. And near at hand the picturesque cactus 

 growth scrambling over the walls gives precisely the 

 necessary finish to the otherwise rather severe type of 

 the architecture. The ensemble prepares one to be 

 pleased with whatever the structure may have to show 

 within. 



It prepares one also, though in quite another way, 

 for a surprise ; for when one has crossed the threshold 

 and narrow vestibule, while the gleam of the outside 

 brightness still glows before his eyes, he is plunged 



VOL. V. 8 



