30 
ACCLIMATIZATION. 
The aquarium is now no novelty ; the one here presented is wonderful in its 
details and arrangement. We are apt (led by experience) to consider an 
aquarium as a repository of weird-looking shapes, which we were content to 
know mostlyresided at the bottom of the sea, and we were sometimes tempted 
to consider their abode appropriate : certain it is that scientific children have 
done their utmost to bring this useful institution into pardonable disgust. Here 
however, the salmon, trout, carp, and eel maybe studied in a tolerably correct 
imitation of their actual homes ; whilst in another compartment sundry sea¬ 
water groups, and in regular succession of time, the eight thousand species 
which constitute the class called fish may be carefully examined. This alone 
may give some idea upon what a scale this practical scheme of education has 
been devised. 
Leaving the aquarium, we gain perhaps the most interesting spot in the whole 
Garden, the “ Garden of Experiment,” where the different plants, grains, and 
seeds that have been received from time to time by the Society are in process of 
cultivation, and on which should be inscribed the motto, “failures constitute 
success.” Such of our members who are so nervously timid about the establish¬ 
ment on their own premises of a museum of practical experiment and appara¬ 
tus, would do well to witness the rapid progress lately made in applied 
Zoology and Botany in the field-laboratory of the Garden of Acclimatization, 
a progress that will not be slow in bearing a direct influence on Pharmacy itself. 
Here are presented, under different inodes of cultivation, and flourishing 
with every imaginable variation of success, more than four hundred species of 
plants, destined to serve for food, for medicinal purposes, or else capable of 
industrial application. Some of these deserve a special notice. 
1. Chinese Yam, or L’lgname Patate (Dioscorea Batatas). In 1846 Vice- 
Admiral Cecille brought home from his Indian voyage an elongated tuber, 
which he put into the hands of M. de Mirbel, Professor at the Museum of 
Natural History. This tuber in time produced a plant, which was preserved 
up to 1850 without having offered any remarkable character. But in April 
of the same year, M. C. deMontigny sent over from Shanghai a certain num¬ 
ber of root-like tubercles, to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, with 
the statement that they were held in much estimation in China. Many 
of the specimens were forwarded to the Museum of Natural History, and 
although exhibited under the most unfavourable circumstances, they still 
succeeded in their cultivation. After considerable discussion, they were shown 
by M. Decaisne to belong to a new species, which he termed Igname Patate 
{Dioscorea Batatas). The same gentleman demonstrated their identity with 
the samples already forwarded by the Vice-Admiral. Convinced of the ad¬ 
vantage to be reaped from the new tuber, M. C. de Montigny dispatched a 
considerable supply to the Imperial Society, and, in 18*55, shipped a large con¬ 
signment for gratuitous distribution. The part used is a rhizome or under¬ 
ground stem, not a root. The technical botanical description of the plant will 
scarcely interest the reader ; if desired, it can readil} 7 be obtained from any re¬ 
cent manual; the official Erencli report is drawn up by M. A. Moquin-Tandon. 
The best idea of its actual constituents will be gathered from the triple 
analysis subjoined: 
Paycn, Boussingault. Premy. 
Boots collected at 
Algiers. 
Paris. 
Paris. 
Starch. 
. 16-76 
13-10 
1600 
Nitrogenous substance. 
. 2-55 
2-40 
1-50 
Patty matter .. 
. 0-30 
0-20 
1-10 
Cellulose . 
. 1-45 
0-40 
1* 
Mineral salts. 
. 1-99 
1-30 
1-10 
Water . 
. 76-95 
S2-60 
79-30 
100-00 
ioo-co 
100-00 
