Abstract
The Council of the Zoological Society of London has approved a scheme for the establishment of an aquarium at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park. The aquarium is to be built under the Mappin Terraces, but so installed as to be invisible from the front, and will not interfere with the panorama of the Terraces. It will consist of a crescentic gallery, 400 ft. long, lined with tanks on both sides. Those on the outer curve will have both daylight and electric illumination, while those on the inner curve will be lighted by electricity only, a method used at the Berlin Aquarium with complete success. The gallery will be divided into three parts—fresh water, marine, and tropical aquaria—with special ponds for seals, diving birds, and trout. The tanks are to be constructed with the bottoms, sides, and backs of slate, and the fronts of polished plate glass set in a framework of white marble. They will be provided with rock-work arranged to suit the needs of their inhabitants. The water will be kept constantly circulating, flowing into the tanks from high-level reservoirs and thence through a series of underground filter-beds, on the plan of those in use at the New York Aquarium, to low-level reservoirs, from which it will be pumped by electric pumps to the high-level reservoirs again. Special arrangements are to be installed for heating the tanks and for regulating the temperature of the water in the different aquaria. The plans for the gallery have been prepared by Messrs. Belcher and Joass, and the circulation, electric plant, and the heating, lighting, and ventilating systems have been designed by Sir Alexander Gibb. The scheme will cost about 50,000l., and should provide London with the best-equipped and most carefully arranged aquarium in Europe.
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Current Topics and Events. Nature 110, 17–20 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110017d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110017d0