LAST YEARS. 309 



Lloyd and Mr. J. T. Carrington, whom he had summoned 

 to his aid, came down to St. Marychurch to make sug- 

 gestions and plans for the tank, the main characteristic of 

 which was to be that it should have a constant current, 

 like those in the Crystal Palace. As it was spring tide, my 

 father took his old friend from Oddicombe beach in a 

 boat to the Bell Rock and to Maidencombe ; but, though 

 they were out three hours, there was a tiresome swell, and 

 they worked in the lovely gardens of red seaweed with 

 but little success. 



Lloyd's visit had, however, its direct results. His eye 

 was quick and his engineering sense prompt and astute. 

 By his recommendation, Philip Gosse had a slate reservoir 

 sunk to the level of the earth, in a coal-shed in his back 

 garden. In this he stored two hundred and ten gallons of 

 brilliant sea-water dipped at Oddicombe beach. In the 

 roof over the kitchen was fixed another slate cistern of 

 a hundred and twenty gallons, and an unused lumber-room 

 was devoted to the reception of the show-tank, to hold 

 fifty gallons, made of slate, with a half-inch plate-glass 

 front. A glass pump and vulcanite pipes completed the 

 establishment, which was fitted up under Lloyd's super- 

 vision. When all was put together, an hour's pumping, 

 once a week, was sufficient to lift the hundred and twenty 

 gallons of sea-water from the reservoir into the cistern, 

 whence it flowed by a pipe with a fine jet into the tank, 

 at the regulated rate of about seventeen gallons a day, while 

 a similar quantity flowed from the bottom of the tank into 

 the reservoir, thus securing a constant circulation. 



The construction of this tank, which, after one or two 

 slight hitches, worked in a most satisfactory manner, 

 greatly revived Philip Gosse's interest in zoology. He 

 began, once again, to haunt the shore, undeterred by the 

 laborious exertion required, or by the exhausting climb up 



