OCEAN GARDENS ; 



wonders of the ocean floor/' and its zoophytic deni- 

 zens, which were so successfully exhibited there; 

 principally through the skilful aid and untiring in- 

 dustry of Mr. Gosse, through whose hands above five 

 thousand specimens passed at the time, collected at 

 the request of the Zoological Society. 



In his interesting record of his early essays, 

 Mr. Gosse gives us many valuable particulars con- 

 cerning his successive experiments, and the various 

 disappointments to which he was at first subjected ; 

 many of them from causes now too well understood 

 to require repetition. His principal difficulty arose 

 from over-crowding, although his tank did not appear, 

 as he states, too much filled. Another disappoint- 

 ment was caused by putting in animals before the 

 smell of the putty, with which the glass sides were 

 fixed, had sufficiently gone off. 



Mr. Gosse' s tank was made with a slate bottom, 

 and birch pillars, in which were grooves to receive 

 the glass ; and its dimensions were, two feet long by 

 one foot six wide, the depth not being mentioned. 



Taking these dimensions into consideration, it 

 will be easy to conceive, when the following list of 

 specimens which Mr. Gosse introduced into his 

 Aquarium is examined, that his population was too 

 dense for the extent of his province, although the 



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