12 
THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM JOURNAL. 
AAT. £3. -W^IR.10, Editor. 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 25, 1876. 
The Aquarium Journal will be published semi¬ 
monthly at the New York Aquarium, corner of 3 5/A 
Street and Broadway, New York Citv. 
Though intended for distribution among the 
patrons of the Aquarium, the Journal will also be 
forwarded for one year, by mail, or delivered by 
carriers to any address on receipt of one dollar, which 
sum is a mere nominal one, since it includes postal 
charge and expense of mailing and delivery. 
All communications should be addressed to W. 
C. COUP, corner l^th Street tip Broadway. 
OPENING OF THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM. 
In this, the second number of the Aquarium 
Journal, the pleasant duty is accorded us of an¬ 
nouncing the successful opening of the New 
York Aqnarium. In accordance with the pub¬ 
lic announcement, the inaugural exercises took 
place on the evening of the 10th of October. At 
that time the invited guests were present, over 
fifteen hundred in number, and if the evident 
satisfaction expressed by them maybe taken as an 
index of their honest approval, the New York 
Aquarium at once takes rank among the most 
charming and instructive places of popular amuse¬ 
ment in the world. For the benefit of those who 
were absent, and yet desire to be informed re¬ 
garding the proceedings of the opening night, 
and also in the interest of the guests who may 
desire to preserve a record of the evening’s enter¬ 
tainment, we herewiih present the complete re¬ 
port of the proceedings. 
The evening of the 10th of October was such 
as to favor all die hopes ol the Aquarium mana¬ 
gers. A perfect day followed by a cloudless night, 
and precisely at the appointed hour the distin¬ 
guished guests began to arrive. The moments pre¬ 
ceding the formal welcome were occupied by the 
guests either in viewing the tanks and their con¬ 
tents, or in securing favorable places from which 
to listen to the address. 
Promptly at eight o’clock the attention of the 
guests was requested to the opening address, 
the speaker being Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt, 
of this city. As consistent with the distinguished 
services rendered by Mr. Roosevelt as chairman 
of the New York State Fish Commission, the 
subject of address was “The Rise and Progress 
of Fish Culture. ” The following is a full report of 
Hon, R, B. Roosevelt’s Address, 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 
Less than thirty years ago two humble fisher¬ 
men of France made a discovery, which, in im¬ 
portance to the world, is surpassed by no 
discovery of ancient or modern times. Up to 
that period people had cultivated the land, there¬ 
after they were to cultivate the water as well. 
Bread was to be won by the sweat of the brow 
no longer from the earth alone, but from the sea 
also. Three-fifths of the world’s surfacd was 
a waste of water; the genius of those men de¬ 
creed that this waste should blossom with 
fertility. From early cays the educated and 
scientific had devoted their attention to the 
creatures which inhabited the waters equally with 
those that inhabited the land. Their Peculiar¬ 
ities of structure were pointed out, they were 
grouped together in classes, arranged somewhat 
as to habitat and given scientific names. The 
system had been so well carried out, as far back 
as the days of the Romans, that Latin is still re¬ 
tained as the language of natural history. Every 
point in connection with fish was studied except 
their propagation. Land anima's had been 
raised for food by man as far back as the earliest 
traditions. It remained lor the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury to conceive the idea of raising fish. Since 
the discovery of which I speak, the utmost 
interest has been manifested in all that relates to 
the habits, growth and increase of fish. Civilized 
nations everywhere have turned anxious attention 
towards what promises such vast results for the 
human race. Whoever adds materially to the 
general information on the subject, is a public 
benefactor. National and state officials have 
been appointed to give it their attention, and 
private associations have been formed to aid in 
the investigation. Tne public mind has bem 
exercised, and every step forward, in what has 
now become an actual science, is hailed with 
satisfaction. There is much to be leirned. The 
present status of agriculture is the result of four 
thousand years of study. Pisciculture has grown 
to its present proportions in thirty years. To 
properly conduct the system it is of the first im¬ 
portance to understand the habits of fish, their 
times and places of spawning, the length of time 
required for the development of the egg, its pe¬ 
culiarities and characteristics, the temperature and 
nature of the bottom, and the kind of food best 
adapted for both young and old. On these sub¬ 
jects we know something in reference to certain 
species. Special attention has been devoted to 
the salmon idea, above all to the salmon and 
trout, which are the most highly prized of all the 
tribes of fish, as they are valued not only for the 
table, but for sport. Of other species we have 
a more or less thorough knowledge, but as to 
many we are still in ihe darkness of ignorance, 
and whatever will tend to give us light is a public 
boon. 
There is no better way of studying many 
of the peculiarities of fish than by the means of 
aquaria on a scale large enough to give free play 
to their hibits. The little gold fish, living in his 
globe, embowered in water weeds, offers us valu¬ 
able suggestions, His unchanging size, scarcely 
developed in years, tells us that, although fish 
may live in confined water, to grow they must 
have proper range. He says to us, also, that 
aquatic plants purify and reinvigorate the water as 
trees and verdure do the atmosphere. The 
larger and more valuable species can be made to 
disclose secrets equally important. Man cannot 
follow the fish in his own element, he cannot 
leap into the brook with the little salmon sprat, 
where amid the mountains hundreds of miles 
from the coast he begins his existence; nor ac¬ 
company him thence in his migration down into 
the brine and out into the mighty ocean ; cannot 
sport with him. among the coral caves and chase 
the minnow and shrimp on which he feeds ; nor 
return with him when the hour comes for him to 
propagate his race. Man can do none of these 
things, but man can bring the fish in his native 
element before him and expose his ways and his 
doings to the light of day. In that way Aquaria 
can be of great use. As a mere matter of amuse¬ 
ment nothing is pleasanter than such a study ; 
as a question of investigation few things are more 
important. The countries of the old world vie 
with one another in the extent and appointments 
of their aquaria and to day for the first time 
America is not far behind the foremost of them. 
- » | 
Look around you and you must be struck with 
the excellence and completeness of the arrange¬ 
ments. Full accommodations are provided for 
the salt as well as for the freshwater varieties and 
even for hatching the eggs and raising the young. 
A complete description of these, however, is not 
within the province of my remarks and will be 
left to others. I desire to add a few words only 
to show more pointedly the public importance of 
the subject and the benefits which may be ex¬ 
pected to flow from an investigation carried on 
under these more advantageous circumstances. 
Years ago when fish culture was first com¬ 
menced among us, an earnest effort was made to 
determine precisely when and where striped bass 
voccns lincatus ^ere in the habit of spawning. 
But our efiorts were essentially failures and to day 
we know but little more than we did then, al¬ 
though we have hatched some of their eggs. Pos¬ 
sibly the bass had prejudices against our meth¬ 
ods and preferred their own, but, whatever may 
be the fact, they certainly have left us in the ut¬ 
most confusion. Some appear to spawn in 
spring, others in summer ; some seek the fresh 
water, others remain in the salt; finally quite a 
number to all appearance never spawn at all. 
Now, if Mr. Coup’s Aquaria will settle this 
question I will promise to erect a monument to 
him in the Central Park. 
This is but one of a thousand vexed questions 
which this e-tablishment may answer in full or 
partly. The best temperature of water for certain 
varieties can be determined accurately, for you 
must know that trout will perish in water heated 
only to that degree which shad require, and 
that the warmer blooded fishes would die in the 
cold spring brooks of the trout. The sorts of 
food, too, required for each species for their best 
developmental the least expen-e, even this can 
be approximately determined in tanks so large 
as some of these, and many other matters of as 
grave import. Enthusiasts in fish culture pre¬ 
dict that as a science it will prove more useful 
and profitable than agriculture and they have 
some grounds for their assertion. The fecun¬ 
dity of fishes is astonishing. An ordinary trout 
will produce two thousand eggs, a salmon ten 
thousand, a white fish twenty thousand, a shad 
thirty thousand and a herring hundrediof thou¬ 
sands. The eggs of a sturgeon have been counted 
and amount to 7,635,200, and those of a cod-fish 
to 9.344,000. The New York Commission has 
taken from a single sturgeon half a million eggs 
merely as an experiment and hatched them all. 
A sturgeon will grow to the weight of two hun¬ 
dred pounds. Imagine the results of multiplying 
2oo by 7,635,200, as the result of a single pair 
of mature fish and you can form an opinion as to 
the probable future importance of fish culture. 
You may wonder that under such a rate of in¬ 
crease there ever could be a scarcity of fish or a 
diminution of the supply, but by the natural 
method the eggs are subject to numberless 
vicissitudes. From the moment they are ex¬ 
truded they are exposed to enemies and dangers 
innumerable. Like the seed that fell by the way- 
side or on the arid ground or among the weeds 
or which was devoured by birds, so fish spawn 
left to its ordinary fate is destroyed by sediment, 
eaten by water, foral and aggressive fish attacked 
by disease affected with fungus, smothered for 
want of aeration and damaged in so many ways 
that it is computed that but one in a thousand 
ever come to maturity. By the artificial method 
all these dangers are prevented, fungers and sedi¬ 
ment are removed, predatory forals and fish are 
not allowed to enter. Man’s intelligence guards 
the eggs so that they all hatch or practically all, 
two per cent, being an excessive loss. When a 
fish deposits 10,000 eggs only ten fish are born 
into the world by the natural method ; by the 
artificial plan 9,800 are produced. These start 
in life as well off as the ten of the other -ystem 
and the results of fish culture compare with the 
ordinary production as one thousand to one ; can 
as much be said of agriculture. But again fish 
