THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN AQUAKIUM. 15 



excitement in Great Britain that all the other curiosities 

 of nature sank, at once, into comparative insignificance. 

 An AquARiuM-mania seized upon the public mind. The 

 Aquarium was on everybody's lip. The Aquarium rang 

 in everybody's ear. Morning, noon, and night, it was 

 nothing but the Aquarium. Books innumerable were 

 written upon it. Lectures, without end, were delivered 

 in elucidation of it. The gardens of the Zoological Soci- 

 ety, in Regent's Park, groaned with the crowd ; and the 

 AQUARiuM-house therein sweltered beneath the multitudes 

 that suffered martyrdom, every day, to contemplate the 

 cause of the sensation. 



It could not be expected that such a novelty would 

 long escape the vigilant gaze of American enterprise. In 

 the autumn of 1856 Mr. P. T. Barnum departed for 

 Europe, carrying with him a carte hlanche from Messrs. 

 Greenwood & Butler, the current proprietors of the Ameri- 

 can (Barnum's) Museum, for the purcba-e of such curiosi- 

 ties as his matured experience might select. He visited 

 the principal cities of Britain, France and Germany, as 

 well as the continent generally ; but nothing struck his 

 observant eye as so preeminent in its attractiveness as the 

 Aquarium. Being personally intimate with Mr. David 

 Mitchell, the gentlemanly secretary of the Zoological Soci- 

 ety of London, Mr. Barnum promptly secured his valuable 

 aid in the introduction of this new pleasure " to the 

 American public. 



Through Mr. Mitchell's influence, Mr. Barnum was ena- 



