414 



PLANT-HOUSES. 



Those who object to the expense of a 

 regular aquarium may grow many of the 

 low-growing kinds in a pit, as exempli- 

 fied in fig. 567, with very good success. 



Fig. 567. 



This was the practice of the late Mr 

 Kent of Clapton, one of the best culti- 

 vators of aquatics of his day ; but as 

 Kent had not the advantages we possess 

 of hot-water pipes and tanks, he was 

 compelled to use fermenting material 

 aided by smoke flues, a a is the ventila- 

 tion in the back and front walls ; b b hot- 

 water pipes for warming the water in the 

 tank; c ventilation to the passage, by 

 admitting the cold air from the surface, 

 down a tube and through the back wall, 

 the orifice of this opening to be regulated 

 by a brass ventilator ; e e ground-level ; 

 / hot- water pipes for warming the atmo- 

 sphere, connected with the same boiler as 

 those which warm the water in the tanks. 

 As in most collections aquatics are not 

 cultivated to a very great extent, such a 

 pit as this might be attached to a cucum- 



ber or melon pit, and be of limited length. 

 The tanks of all aquatic pits or houses 

 should have a waste-pipe, so that they 

 may not only be emptied occasionally, 

 but the water may be changed frequently, 

 by letting off a part and replacing it with 

 a fresh supply. Without this precaution 

 it would become offensive, as well as 

 muddy. 



Much as we dislike circular houses in 

 general, we admit that, for an aquarium of 

 the first order, they are superior to all 

 others, particularly such as have curvi- 

 linear roofs. In the earlier editions of 

 "The Encyclopaedia of Gardening," a 

 figure is given of a house of this kind, 

 and for this purpose, which appears to 

 us to be the most perfect idea of a house 

 for the purpose we have met with. The 

 editor therein proposes a set of mecha- 

 nical arrangements for producing motion 

 in imitation of a river, a principle of late 

 held to be of much importance in the 

 cultivation of aquatics, and variously 

 effected — in the aquarium at Dalkeith be- 

 ing by a horizontal wheel, kept in constant 

 motion by a small jet of the supply water 

 made to play on the wheel, which as it re- 

 volves agitates the surface of the water, and 

 tends to drive it to the point of escape. 



The annexed fig. 568 is that of an 

 aquarium of the highest order. It will 

 show the principle — altered, however, from 

 the original, and adapted to modern 

 modes of heating and ventilating, as well 

 as giving a ground-plan to render the 

 description more complete. The ground- 

 plan, fig. 569, should consist of a cistern 

 or tank a in the centre, 10 feet in diame- 

 ter, with a small jet-d'eau supplied from 



Fig. 568. 



a reservoir, so elevated and constructed 

 that the water in it during winter might 

 be kept at or about the summer tempera- 



ture of river water; a thing easily done 

 by bringing up a flow and return half- 

 inch leaden pipe, and forming a coil of 



