AQUEDUCT asphalting the sides offers no particular advantages, and often gives rise to great trouble and expense. All materials, and especially the cements, must be of the finest quality procurable. For smaller and movable tanks, slate slabs bolted or screwed together have some disadvantages, notably those of expense, weight, and brittleness, but are often used. Better, cheaper, and lighter, if less permanent, are tanks of wood bolted together, pitched internally. Glass bell-jars, useful in particular cases, should generally have their sides darkened, except when required for observation. Provision should always be made for cleaning- every part of the tanks, pipes, and reservoirs; all rock-work in tanks should therefore be removable. As regards the lighting of fixed tanks, it should always be directly from above. In all tanks with glass sides, whether large or small, as much light as possible should be kept from entering through the glass; otherwise, with a side-light, many animals become restless, and wear themselves out against the glass, affected by even so little light as comes through an opposite tank. In cases where distance from the sea or other causes make it impracticable to allow the overflow from the tanks to run to waste, special precautions must be taken to keep the water pure. Chemically speaking, the chief character of the water in an aquarium circulation, when compared with that of the open sea, lies in the excessive quantity of nitrogen present in various forms, and the reduced alkalinity ; these two being probably connected. The excess of nitrogen is referable to dead animals, to waste food, and to the excreta of the living organisms. The first two of these sources of contamination may be reduced by care and cleanliness, and by the maintenance of a flow of water sufficient to prevent the excessive accumulation of sediment in the tanks. The following experiment shows the rapid rise of nitrogen if unchecked. A tank with a considerable fauna was isolated from the general circulation and aerated by four air-jets, except during hours 124-166 of the experiment; column I. shows per 100,000 the nitrogen estimated as ammonia, column II. the total inorganic nitrogen :— i. ii. Sea water at source of original 0-001 0-003 supply Aquarium water in tank at com0-012 0-400 mencement of experiment 0-020 After 224 hours 0-025 1-200 „ 75' „ . 0-019 „ 93 „ . „ 121£ „ . • 0-012 0-015 2-200 „ 141 0-025 „ 165 0-025 ,, 169 0-012 ,, 189 During this time the alkalinity was reduced to the equivalent of 30 mg. CaC03 per litre, ocean water having an alkalinity equivalent to 50-55 mg. per litre. It has been suggested that the organic nitrogen becomes oxidized into nitrous, then into nitric acid, which lowers the carbonate values. A great deal of reduction of this nitrogenous contamination can be effected by filtration, a method first introduced successfully at Hamburg, where a most thriving aquarium has been maintained by the local Zoological Society for many years on the circulation principle, new water being added only to compensate for waste and evaporation. The filters consist of open double boxes, the inner having a bottom of perforated slate on which rests rough gravel; on the latter is fine gravel, then coarse, and finally fine sand. Filtration may be either upwards or downwards through the inner box to the outer. Such filters, intercalated between tanks and reservoir, have been shown by analysis to stop a very large proportion of nitrogenous matter. It is doubtful whether aquarium
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water will not always show an excess of nitrogenous compounds, but they must be kept down in every way possible.. In small tanks, well lighted, sea-weeds can be got to flourish in a way that has not been found practicable in large tanks with a circulation; these, with Lamellibranchs and small Crustacea as scavengers, will be found useful in this connexion. Slight or occasional circulation should be employed here also, to remove the film of dust and other matters, which otherwise covers the surface of the water and prevents due oxygenation. In such small tanks for domestic use the fauna must be practically limited to bottom-living animals, but for purposes of research it is often desired to keep alive larval and other surface-swimming animals (plankton). In this case a further difficulty is presented, that of helping to suspend the animals in the water, and thus to avoid the exhaustion and death which soon follow their unaided efforts to keep off the bottom; this duty is effected in nature by specific gravity, tide, and surface current. In order to deal with this difficulty a simple but efficient apparatus has been devised by Mr E. T. Browne ; a “ plunger,” generally a glass plate or filter funnel, moves slowly up and down in a bell-jar or other small tank, with a period of rest between each stroke; the motive power is obtained through a simple bucket-and-siphon arrangement worked by the overflow from other tanks. This apparatus (first used at the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association in 1897, and since introduced into similar institutions), by causing slight eddies in the water, keeps the floating fauna in suspension, and has proved very successful in rearing larvae and in similar work. (o. h. Fo.) Aqueduct.—The term aqueduct, although properly including artificial works of every kind by means of which water is conveyed from one place to another, is generally used in a more limited sense. It is, in fact, rarely employed except in cases where the work is of considerable magnitude and importance, and where the water flows naturally by gravitation. The most important purpose for which aqueducts are constructed is that of conveying pure water, from sources more or less distant, to large masses of population. Where towns are favourably situated the aqueduct may be very short and its cost bear suppiyt a relatively small proportion to the total outlay upon a scheme of water supply, but where distant sources have to be relied upon the cost of the aqueduct becomes one of the most important features in the scheme, and the quantity of water obtainable must be considerable to justify the outlay. Hence it is that only very large towns can undertake the responsibility for this expenditure, though, either voluntarily on the part of the promoters, or by the action of Parliament, smaller sanitary districts near the aqueduct are allowed to become customers for the water. In Great Britain it has, in fact, in all large schemes become a condition that, when a town is permitted to go outside its own watershed, it shall, subject to a priority of a certain number of gallons per day per head of its own inhabitants, allow local authorities, any part of whose district is within a certain number of miles of the aqueduct, to take a supply on reasonable terms. The first case in which this principle was adopted on a large scale was the Thirlmere scheme, sanctioned by Parliament in 1879, for augmenting the supply of Manchester. The previous supply was derived from a source only about 15 miles distant, and the cost of the aqueduct, chiefly cast-iron pipes, was insignificant compared with the cost of the impounding reservoirs. But Thirlmere is 96 miles distant from the service reservoir near Manchester, and the cost of the aqueduct was more
