OR, GLIMPSES BENEATH TEE WATERS. 



Tinise to add to liis already enormous list, no new 

 Curculios with which to form another volume to the 

 already portly series — these and other physiological 

 Alexanders, weeping for new regions to subdue, 

 may hail the Aquarium as a fertile source of further 

 conquests ; for, notwithstanding the numerous and 

 curious discoveries of recent investigators, the depths 

 of the ocean are as yet, comparatively speaking, one 

 of the untrodden fields of science ; and a glorious 

 arena it presents — the Aquarium being one of the 

 fairest channels for the detection of its myriads of 

 yet hidden mysteries. 



The marine Aquarium is, as yet, a plaything, a 

 mere toy ; but it is destined to become a far more 

 important means of advancing science, and minis- 

 tering to popular instruction, amusement, and won- 

 der, than is yet dreamt of. It has yet to do for the 

 ocean that which our menageries and vast gardens, 

 devoted to the service of natural history, have done 

 for the forests and mountains of the terrestrial por- 

 tion of our planet. 



We shall yet have tropical Aquaria, in which 

 the temperature and qualities of the sea between 

 the tropics will be so successfully imitated, that the 

 glorious shells of those regions will be exhibited in 

 living motion to our greedily-curious gaze ; and fish 



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