EEID NATURAL HISTORY AND THE FISHERIES. 135 



would give the conditions necessary to successful growth. They 

 were by dint of great exertion, after repeated partial failures, 

 reduced to a commercial success ; and quinine has fallen in price 

 owing to this new source of supply, with the certainty now that it 

 will not be exterminated. 



Many gentlemen here have conservatories, and in so far tend to 

 further our knowledge of Natural Science ; and the commissioners 

 of the Public Gardens are also laudably engaged in the same most 

 necessary work, and they know that their efforts are appreciated. 

 I also trust, since they have one of the finest public gardens in the 

 Dominion, that they will at once set about a marine aquarium, a 

 most necessary, and withal an inexpensive improvement, and one 

 that would be by far the most attractive, and in full vigour all the 

 year round, and besides it would be the first of any moment in 

 the Dominion. 



It is pleasant to enter a conservatory and see the quaint luxuri- 

 ous vegetation of the tropics, and thousands of flowers of every 

 shade and size ; but this pales at once before the interest and 

 beauty that attracts and rivets attention when standing before an 

 aquarium well stocked with the living representatives of the fishes 

 that inhabit our littoral waters, and much more so could we visit 

 the famous Brighton Aquarium, with its assembly of deep sea 

 species. I will not dwell longer on this part of the subject, for the 

 suggestion will call up the appropriate ideas. 



But the aquarium has its use, it teaches in language understood 

 by the lowest intelligence, and proposes problems which the bright- 

 est mind has yet to carefully study ere there is a prospect of solution. 

 How appropriate that the rising youth of Halifax should practi- 

 cally know something of those really strange animals that contribute 

 to the prosperity of his country. Practical natural history could 

 thus be inculcated, and a foundation would be laid of more than 

 provincial greatness. 



As to the cost. This can be completely governed by the extent. 



and can be enlarged as circumstances would warrant. We are so 



near the sea, that there would be but trifling expense in supplying 



with water, and only sufficient would be required to make up for. 



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