1876.] Aquaria: Their Past, Present, and Future. 615 - 
edition of his book, in 8vo, on the growth of plants in closely 
glazed cases, and this in 1854 was followed by the second edition, 
in 12mo.. In 1853, Dr. N, B. Ward’s son, the present Dr. 
Stephen H. Ward, gave a lecture on this subject at the Royal 
Institution, which was published as a 12mo pamphlet in the 
same year. All three of these are now and have been long out 
of print, and they bear testimony, indubitably, that N. B. Ward 
experimented with. aquaria about the year 1840, though he did 
not use the word “aquarium,” which was employed for the 
first time in print, as far as I know, twice by Mr. P. H. Gosse, 
in his Devonshire Coast, post 8vo, 1853, at pages 234 and 
441. That is to say, N. B. Ward is the earliest recorded person 
who intentionally arranged together certain animals and plants 
in water, so that these two sets of organisms should mutually 
and partly support each other, the plants giving off oxygen and 
taking up carbon, and the animals taking up oxygen and giving 
off carbon, thus decomposing and rendering harmless the car- 
bonic acid gas as continually as it was evolved by the animals, 
and maintaining the water pure. In Dr. S. H. Ward’s pam- . 
phlet, just named, is a long, circumstantial, and most interesting 
harrative of how Mrs. Anne Thynne did the same thing precisely 
with sea-water and marine animals and plants. This lady being 
in London in the year 1846, and having some living corals and 
sponges, used to send occasionally to the -coast for supplies of 
water for her creatures. But finding that if a quantity of this 
water were taken up in a jug and let fall again from its spout in 
a slender stream, it lost whatever impurity it contained from 
contact with air in this much comminuted state, she ceased to 
get more from the sea, and instead got from thence some living 
Sea-weed and placed it in the water, which derived additional 
benefit from ‘this vegetation, just as Dr. N. B. Ward found his 
fresh water had benefited by the plants he introduced. It is more 
than probable, however, that in both these instances the really 
beneficial vegetation was not that which was thus visibly intro- 
duced, but was the minute kind which grew parasitically on the 
plants and upon the inside of the vessels. Yet it must be ad- 
mitted that this gentleman and this lady are the two first known 
Persons who, keeping a chemical law in view, deliberately and 
purposely set about attaining means for its fulfillment in an 
In 1849, the late Mr. Robert Warington, chemist to the Com- 
pany of Apothecaries, set up in his rooms, in the hall of that 
