aquaria: their present, past, and future. 257 
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 occa- 
sionally 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 seaweed 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 introduced, but was the minute- 
kind which grew parasitically on the plants and upon the- 
inside of the vessels* Yet it must be admitted that this gentle- 
man 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 fulfilment in an aquarium. 
In 1849 the late Mr. Robert Warington, chemist to the 
Company of Apothecaries, set up in his rooms, in the Hall of 
that Company, in London, his first aquarium, a fresh>-water one, 
followed, in 1851-2, by his first marine aquarium. These he 
described in the periodicals of the day, and in ai lecture which 
he also gave at the Royal Institution in an interesting manner, 
and naturally from a chemist’s point of view.. At about the 
same period Mr. P. H.. Grosse commenced his earliest marine 
aquarium, as did Dr. J. S. Bowerbank, Dr. Cotton, and the late 
Dr. E. Lankester, and the successes attained by these- experi- 
menters induced the Zoological Society of London to determine 
to have a public aquarium in its gardens im Regent’s Park. 
The building for this purpose was erected in the spring and 
summer of the year 1852. The marine and fresh-water animals 
were begun to be introduced in the late autumn ; the follow- 
ing winter and spring were wisely spent in experimenting on 
the best modes of operating, and the exhibition was opened on 
May 21, 1853. After having been noticed in print by the 
“ Athenaeum ” of some months earlier, it was again commented 
upon by that journal of May 28, and by the “ Illustrated 
London News ” of the same day and year, the latter publication 
giving views of two tanks. One of the earliest services which 
this institution conferred on biological literature may be seen in 
portions of the Natural History division of the 44 English Cyclo- 
paedia” (an adaptation of the earlier u Penny Cyclopaedia ”), as 
the former publication appeared fortnightly, commencing in the 
spring of 1853 ; and as it was edited by Dr. E. Lankester, who 
always took much interest in aquaria, he mentions in the book 
VOL. XV. — NO. LX. S 
