St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-07-14

iSSS Ol SeHUllS TdIuTdllSCS Jnere to
make use of it's advantages. The res
ident staff of the institution is COM
posed of seven resident, permanent
haturalists, with twenty assistants
and they employ steam launches, a
hotilla of sailing boats to enable
them to dredge and otherwise investi-
gate with thoroughness.
we New Workers have certainly
missed a great opportunity of so
building and planning as to achieve a.
great purpose. But municipal meas
ures here are seldom foresighted. and
we have failed where Sebastono,
Edinburgh, Ostend, Trieste and other
cities have succeeded. To be sure
there is a small laboratory to be con-
nected with the show, but this will. I
am afraid, never develop into a CEN
ter of scientific investigation. 1 should
judge DR.. Bean agrees with me, for
though he told me his ambition Law
IN that direction, he ended with a.
sigh.
once inside the building the first
thlng that strikes your eye are the
seven Dig pools on level with Won. In
the Dig one, though not large enough
ABOUT SIX feet deep and fifteen feet
IN diameter, they are going to nut
the white whale that the public are
crying for. OF course they can get a
SMALL WHITE WHALE
but it will not live more than three
months, and will virtually be butch
cred to make a New York holiday. 81
suppose We'll have to get it, though"
said the superintendent In the other
six pools the large fishes and the two
seals are to sport. The two seals are
there now, and as their keeper goes
to them, they swim up to the edge of
the pool, put their noses up to him.
and let him run his hand through their
fur and pat them playfully on the
mead They are not going to be trained
TO climb rope or turn a hand organ
or ride bicycle, for the man in power
draws lire right here, but they are
IN the aquarium to let people see a
real seal.
Inc pools occupy most of the space
on the ground floor, though around the
edges of the circular enclosure are
thlrty-six tanks five feet wide running
up about six feet from the fioor and
with heavy plate glass sides facing
you. Up above is a gallery running
ABOUT three-fourths of the way around,
where there are fifty-siX tanks ar
ranged like those below. Then TO COM
plete the outfit are the large aauaria
or glass jars and boxes on tables, in
which are growing coral and marine
plants.
Into the various receptacies the doc
Tor idea is to put representatives of
life in the waters in and around New
bear transportation from the tropics
and will live in captivity. though MANY
OF the most interesting fishes. like the
flying fish. are those which will not
live as prisoners of man. no matter
how gentle he may be. None of us
need be told of the common fishes
which abound in the salt and fresh
waters near New York EVERYONE
knows of the fiat-bellied
SEA PORGY,
with his wondering eyes and sucker
mouth with "wot tell" expression
generally; the sea horse which loaf.
around anywhere between Cape COD
and Florida, and whose bed is in the
restless, floating pelagtc seaweed. like
that which Columbus saw and wrongly
took as an indicat ton of land being
near, and whose favorite food in cap
tivity is the fresh water flea: or the
black bass, which Agassfz called the
brutal fish, the strutting gold fish,
the Voracious shark, the striped black
rock, and other members of the bass
family black sturgeon, scu.p cells,
trout, with the various branches of the
crustacean tribe. Well, all these will
be seen, swimming or crawling in their
almless way in the waters of the
aquarium, and occasionally, as they
sometimes do, making a show at doing
business, and hustling around in the
tanks. besides these and other ia
miliar fish, you can see a few imported
guests, like the hideous octopus. a few
small specimens only, for the large
ones, say three feet from tip to tip of
tentacles, are difficult to carry so far
from the Pacific coast; the angel fish,
so called from its Wing-like frs. and
strange to say, belonging to the shark
1amlly; red snapper, which we eat but
never see alive; the trunk fish, shaped
ike lady'S Saratoga trunk; the SOUR
rel fish, so called because it has a lorg
tail; the grunts fish, named so for an
audible reason, and the sergeant ma
Jor, all full of stripes. The aIIigators
and crocodiles and sea liors will find
no place in the aquarium, but all at
quarters at the other end of the island,
in Central park In fact the co1ec-
ton will be our answer to the question.
DO you have any good fishing around
New York;" and it will be our New
York aquarium. l asked the superin-
tendent whether it would be necessary
to
RESTOCK THE AQUARIUM
from time to time, as the inmates die,
or whether he would conduct a sort of
pisciculture. He said the latter would
be impossible, as the fish eat their
that they do this in preference to any
other kind of food. Nearly all of the
fishes are fed minced clam, even those
like the mallet, the roach, and the
goldfish, whose ordinary food is veg
etabie, the marine MOSES and grasses
and other aqueous plants. The seals
and other carnivorous fish are fed
great numbers of kill fish or mum
mics, a dark minnow caught in traps
in the bay under the walls of the
aquarium. Fish said the doctor,
seem to adapt themselves readily to
many fresh water fish, which we are
accustomed to believe cannot live in
salt water, really can do so. For in
stance, a brook trout, a real salmo
1ontanails, was put into salt water
last November, and it is still alive and
thrifty, and has grown four inches in
length. Here is a problem for the fish
commission.
The two great difficulties in keeping
the fish alive is lack of heat and pure
water. Take d few days of continued
freezing cold and biting wind such as
we had last winter, when every ship
coming up the bay had her rigging
hidden by a thick coating of ice and
the sea walls of the Battery were to
all appearances great frozen barriers
One would think the water drawn from
the bay for the tanks and the atmos-
phere in the glass-covered aquarium
would be so cold that the shallow
pools and tanks would freeze, but sci
entific ingenuity has seen even to that,
and there are steam radiators in the
building itself, ard the fresh supply
of water is pumped into the building