Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
For the present edition both text and illustrations of the original
German version have been considerably expanded and adjusted.
SF457.3.B78 2005
639.34’2—dc22
2004027647
Contents
7 D ive In 7
26 “ Pa ssion a nd D iligence” 25
Pioneers
99 Fashion Show 8 6
Typology of Parlor Aquariums
1 33 Ap p e ndix 1 33
1 33 Acknowledgments 1 3 3
1 33 Selected Bibliography 1 35
1 33 Illustration Credits 1 3 9
133A Selection of Aquariums and Oceanariums 141
1 33 About the Author 1 43
“There are ideas that dream.”
—Gaston Bachelard
D ive In
7
The question of whether sea anemones or corals are
animals or plants must have been a popular debate
amongst the curious visitors to Jäger’s aquarium, who
“visibly struggled and fought with their conventional
beliefs.” Observing visitors to the aquarium, Jäger
noted further:
Occasionally, when the guide happened to be absent,
I have witnessed cases in which educated individuals,
after longer periods of moving from one tank to the
next, walked out and asked the ticket officer angrily:
‘What in heaven’s name am I actually supposed to see
in there?’
The unknown provoked feelings of both curiosity
and apprehension. While visitors were searching for
a new experience, they were also afraid of what they
might discover. They fought it, not willing to believe
or understand what appeared before their eyes. Jäger
had to use all his pedagogical skills to explain the
wondrous life-forms in the tanks. His efforts ulti-
mately paid off, and he was able to observe “how at
first the visitors started to understand, and how this
then gave way to amazement, finally resulting in
warm admiration.”
Today, it is easy to take the aquarium for granted,
but one must wonder how awesome it must have
been 150 years ago to peer through a window into a
truly alien world. How did such an invention come
to be? This fascinating idea of simulating, gazing at,
and observing the exotic world of the ocean in an arti-
ficial environment did not simply develop from one
day to the next, but required a very specific will to
comprehend, as well as the appropriate materials and
techniques. This book attempts to show and exam-
ine the evolution of the aquarium, from the different
historical precursors to today’s public and private dis-
plays, and to give an insight into the mindset of the
scientists, inventors, and obsessive enthusiasts who
recreated the ocean in their homes.
8
Th e First Se e d
The Secret of the Ocean
9
breeze helped create new seaside resorts, first in Great
Britain and later in continental Europe and the east-
ern United States. Thanks to the newly completed
railroad systems, these resorts could now be reached
in a matter of hours. This easier access coupled with
the public’s changing perceptions played a major role
in increasing the ocean’s popularity.
While the coasts and surfaces of the oceans were
being explored more and more, the deep sea still kept
its secrets for some time. Attempts to shed light on
the ocean’s murky depths failed for many years due
to technical shortcomings, and research in the early
nineteenth century remained focused on physical
and chemical analyses, such as gauging the water’s
temperature, salt content, and density, as well as
attempts to understand the principles of wave for-
mation. Around 1830 scientific interest in this area
declined, and many researchers turned to other
This construction burgeoning fields such as meteorology and geomag-
made of leather
and metal is netism. Biologists, on the other hand, began head-
one of the first ing out to sea more intensively to collect and study
documented marine life. Invertebrate creatures such as sea anem-
diving helmets,
seventeeth ones, sponges, corals, worms, jellyfish, and crabs were
century particularly fascinating, as these life-forms played an
important role in the development of A forerunner of
modern diving
the theory of evolution. suits at the
Up until the middle of the nine- beginning of
the nineteenth
teenth century, the physique, shape,
century
and appearance of many marine ani-
mals had still been an enigma. The
popular assumption was that nothing
could exist in the cold and dark abyss
of the deep sea. In 1844 an anonymous
author wrote in the book The Ocean: a
Description of the Wonders and Impor-
tant Products of the Sea:
Heavy bodies, which will sink rapidly
from the surface, do at length apparently
10
The crew of the
French corvette
Alecton trying
to catch a giant
squid in 1861
11
was believed life could no longer exist, and in 1841, he
had the opportunity to cruise the eastern Mediterra-
nean as the naturalist aboard the naval surveying ship
hms Beacon. Forbes dredged to depths of up to 230
fathoms, or 1,380 feet. The results were rather poor,
but he came up with the hypothesis of eight bands, or
depth zones, in the sea, each having a unique assem-
blage of marine life.
During the 1850s, miles and miles of underwater
telegraph cables were installed, opening unprec-
edented lines of communication between continents.
In 1860 a damaged cable, which had lain between the
Italian island of Sardinia and the Algerian coast for
three years, was fished out of the Mediterranean. This
operation not only brought the remains of the cable
to the surface, but also numerous creatures—from
depths below 1,000 fathoms! Nearly twenty years
after he proposed it, Edward Forbes’s theory was con-
firmed, and the centuries-old perception of a lifeless
deep sea was permanently laid to rest.
Frenzied work was promptly carried out in various
Usage of a countries to develop diving bells—an undertaking
dredger that confronted builders with great problems due to
12
the enormous change in pressure underwater. One Diving chamber
such example was the German submarine engineer with lighthouse
by the German
Wilhelm Bauer. In 1866 he submitted a proposal to submarine
construct a propeller-driven submarine diving station engineer
Wilhelm Bauer
whose functional principle was based on an air blad-
der, which had the ability to “dive, climb, hold out,
and incline” perfectly. Sadly, his apparatus, intended
to enable the inspection of telegraph cables and to
serve the pearl and coral industry, was never built.
In the following years, scientists ventured further
out to sea and, with the help of dredgers, set sail for
ever-lower depths. Initially, Great Britain, France,
Germany, and the Scandinavian countries were very
active in pursuing marine life, while the United States
continued to focus on exploring its coasts and ascer-
taining the limits of its own water resources.
13
The now legendary four-year expedition of the
British corvette hms Challenger, led by Sir Charles
Wyville Thomson, started in 1872 and explored 363
locations around the world. The ship set out to inves-
tigate for the first time the conditions of each of the
oceanic basins, and it did indeed navigate through
every one except the Arctic. Its results filling thirty-
eight large volumes, Thom-
son’s expedition laid the
foundations for interdisci-
plinary scientific knowledge
of the deep sea: its life, from
the floating plankton to
the creatures at its depths
(Thomson introduced an
astounding 4,717 new ani-
The British mal species to science); the motions and composition
corvette HMS of the water from the surface to the bottom; and the
Challenger
shape and composition of the ocean floor.
Knowledge about life in the deep sea broadened,
but its interpretation was often accompanied by
ambivalence. In fact, many of the deep-sea creatures
Thomson recorded seemed to confirm the fears of
earlier times, as they often resembled the monsters
that had long populated sailors’ tales. The writer of
biological science, William Marshall, for instance,
wrote in 1888, about the “real pelican eel”:
This strange monster whose shape combines a spoon
and a funnel can do little more than to wriggle along
the ocean bed; it hides in the mud with only its open, The real pelican
eel, a creature
nearly toothless mouth protruding, patiently waiting from the
until a victim escaping from the Scylla of a malicious deep sea
lurking crustacean comes too close to
the Charybdis of this terrible gullet and
falls victim to it.
Gustav Jäger seemed torn between
two minds when noting in the chap-
ter about the “abysses of the ocean”
14
of his book Das Leben im Wasser und im Aquarium
(Life in the Water and in the Aquarium) that the crea-
tures caught during deep-sea fishing were not fan-
tastical dragons, octopuses, or sea snakes, but small
and harmless life-forms that preyed on even smaller
creatures which were only visible under a microscope.
Yet, he went on to add the following reservation:
It is still possible that in the end the prophecies of the
myths will come true and gigantic animals will appear
from the depths, [because] the more thorough our
deep-sea research methods become, the more crea-
tures will appear.
The demystification of the deep sea was certainly
received with mixed feelings. In 1893 the foreword
of Johannes Walther’s book Allgemeine Meereskunde
(General Marine Science) asked whether the new
inventions making possible the scientific examina-
tion of the ocean would not destroy its beauty, just as
the invention of the telescope had “torn the soul out
of the sky.” Fifteen years earlier, the French author
Léon Sonrel had become obsessed with the ocean.
His book Le Fond de la Mer (The Ocean Bed) was a
compendium of every imaginable aspect of the sub-
marine world and culminated in a fantasy in which
Paris is completely submerged. The idea of oceanic
construction played on the minds of many non-
fiction authors and novelists in the 1860s: La Mer
(The Ocean) by Jules Michelet, Les Travailleurs de la
Mer (The Workers of the Ocean) by Victor Hugo, and
the fantastic novel Vingt Mille Lieues sous les Mers
(20,000 Leagues under the Sea) by Jules Verne are
probably the most famous of these.
The ocean began to play a larger role in the popular
consciousness, and people became convinced that
marine exploration was of great importance—both
financially and intellectually—thus enabling scien-
tists to receive support for their costly expeditions.
The former fear of the ocean as a treacherous, cursed,
15
lonely place had been replaced by unbridled enthu-
siasm. “The land of promise for the naturalist...was
the bottom of the deep-sea,” wrote Sir Thomson in
his book The Depths of the Sea. Seven years earlier,
the German biologist Matthias Jacob Schleiden had
also stated that the ocean was “no longer a barren
cold place where once in a while a lonely Leviathan
would pass through, [and] only an ignoramus would
still consider it a place of fear.”
16
Th e Se co n d Se e d
Chambers, Cabinets, Cases
17
Levinus Vincent’s
coral cabinet
18
shell collectors started meeting once a month to
discuss their hobby. They called themselves “Lovers
of Neptune’s Cabinet” and, according to Henry E.
Coomans, their small group was the first concho-
logical society. Around 1750 the keeping of parrots,
canaries, and ornamental poultry became very popu-
lar, particularly among women. The science
historian Emma C. Spary has attempted to
explain this by drawing parallels between
caged birds and the restricted lives of women
bound to their household chores; women and
aristocrats were considered to be “fickle with
an uncontrollable sexual drive, dressed up in bright
colors and always in pursuit of something new.” A few
years later, enthusiasm in Great Britain took hold for
a certain, so-called “tasteful” plant collected along
The passion
of collecting
depicted on
playing cards
19
beaches: seaweed. The feather-like plant was washed
in fresh water and then, while still moist, stored in
little boxes. This simple hobby was just the thing for
high-society ladies, who often held the responsibility
of naming the newly discovered species. Collecting
offered an uncontroversial distraction, and the “hunt”
for objects such as shells and seaweed involved no
cruelty. Above all, the collected objects were so beau-
tifully clean and immaculate—a perfect decoration
for the boudoir. Some even arranged corals and sea-
weed as miniature landscapes on paper.
Before the middle of the nineteenth century,
another kind of plant, the fern, became a new collec-
tor’s favorite in Britain. Exotic new species of ferns,
imported from tropical regions, caused the plant to
become a highly coveted status symbol. An increas-
ing number of ferns were brought in, transported in
more or less airtight glass tanks, which were decisive
for the survival of the plants during long journeys.
That plant life could now sustain such journeys was
a tremendous breakthrough. And since scores of col-
lectors were already fascinated by unused treasures
imported from the seaside, it was only a matter of
time before such tanks would transport not plants,
but animals from the deep.
20
Th e Th ird Se e d
Pet Fish
21
interior of a house in imperial Rome
was the sea barbel, a much cherished
and expensive breed. Allegedly, they
were kept in small tanks underneath
the cushions of the guest beds. Around
50 ad, panes of glass were brought to
Rome, Herculanaeum, and Pompeii, to
replace one wall of the marble tanks;
now it was possible to actually see the
hustle and bustle of the fish without
having to guess their schematic move-
ments from above.
By the tenth century ad, goldfish
were already playing a significant role
as pets in China and later became
very popular with the country’s ruling
classes. Emperor Hung Wu estab-
lished a porcelain factory in 1369 that
produced large tubs, decorated with
images of dragons and clouds, for fish
and aquatic plants. The shape of these
tubs changed over the years, first as
half-barrels, then, from 1700 onward,
as hemispherical shapes with rounded
Geisha with sides at the top. Over time, the con-
goldfish bowl, tainers started to look more and more like modern-
Japanese
woodcut print day fish bowls.
by Keisai Eisen Around 1500, the goldfish was exported to the
(1790–1848),
Japanese city of Sakai, near Osaka. But it was not
ca. 1830
for another two hundred years that Japan had its first
professional goldfish breeder: Sato Sanzaemon, from
the Koriyama area. From here, the goldfish culture
spread to all four corners of the country. Woodcut
prints from the early 1800s show elegant courtesans
gazing at miniature globes, giving the impression
that the keeping of fish was one of their favorite
pastimes. Today, Japan is famously known for its mul-
titude of goldfish, bred and differentiated into highly
22
Dorade de la
Chine
23
By 1770, the keeping of goldfish had become quite
common. In contrast, the goldfish did not reach the
United States until much later, probably around 1850.
The well-known showman Phineas T. Barnum is said
to have brought some examples back from his travels
to Europe in the mid-1800s, and G. F. Hervey noted in
his book The Goldfish that a New York City pet shop
was selling goldfish around 1865. In 1883 the aquar-
ist Hugo Mulertt, an American of German origin,
complimented Admiral Dan Ammen on his efforts to
cultivate the goldfish in the United States—methods
that Mulertt would soon use in his goldfish hatch-
ery in Cincinnati. With his participation in industrial
expositions, his ways of breeding goldfish became
better known and helped to spread the hobby in the
United States as the nineteenth century pressed on.
24
“ Pa ssio n a n d D ilig e n ce”
Pioneers
25
Catching turtles,
around 1850
26
oysters. If we can believe what the Scottish zoologist
D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson wrote in Science and
the Classics, this anemone even outlived Sir Dalyell
by several decades, finally dying in 1887—a full sixty
years after its capture.
In 1797 a 300-page book entitled Naturgeschichte
der Stubenthiere (Natural History of Parlor Animals),
written by the zoologist and scientist Johann Matthäus
Bechstein and illustrated with a pipe-smoking ape,
was published in Gotha, Germany. Besides mammals
Naturgeschichte
der Stubenthiere
(Natural History
of Parlor Animals),
title page
27
and insects, the book also included a small chapter
on the knowledge and keeping of fish. Specifically the
chapter dealt with the weather loach and the “gold
carp,” a goldfish that was “partly kept in garden ponds
and basins, and partly in glass or porcelain tanks...
as a feast for the eyes.” In order to study their move-
ments Bechstein suggested using “big glass bowls
with an opening at the top which is wide enough for
the fish to receive oxygen, but narrow enough to stop
them from jumping out,” and further advised that
during the summer the water should be exchanged
twice a week, and during the winter every eight to
fourteen days. According to Bechstein, fish had a very
good sense of hearing and in China every fish bowl
was equipped with a small whistle with which the
fish could be lured to the surface for feeding. The
scientist regarded the weather loach to be just as tal-
ented, and even stated that it could make sounds. It
seemed to behave like a living barometer, becoming
uneasy when rain or thunder were imminent, swim-
ming to the surface even though it normally liked
to keep to the bottom. Provided the weather loach
received fresh water and mud at the prescribed inter-
vals, it would be able to survive for many years in a
large sugar jar filled to approximately one-third with
mud and sand. During the winter it required a heated
room and a place close to a window.
Inspired by the work of Sir Dalyell, the French
scientist Jeannette Power de Villepreux belonged to
a group of scientists that displayed a more explicit Cage á la Power
connection to later saltwater aquariums.
Around 1830, Power carried out research in
Messina, Sicily, on argonauts, also known as
paper nautilus—profoundly odd creatures
possessing a lensless eye that functions
like a pinhole camera. The timid females of
the species (the males are much smaller in
size) would swim in the ocean either alone
28
Paper nautilus
29
for prehistoric reptiles, knew of Power’s experiments,
and in 1858 he attributed the invention of the aquarium
to her. Power herself would later express—quite self-
confidently—that she had in fact invented the aquar-
ium. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Ameri-
can feminists viewed Power not only as the inventor
of the aquarium but also as the prime example in a
long line of successful female inventors. An article
in The North American Review from 1883 entitled
“Woman as an Inventor” highlighted Power as “one of
the most eminent naturalists of the century.” A long-
belated—and exceptionally remote—memorial was
granted to her in 1991, when a crater on Venus was
named after her. Power’s claim, however, provoked
objections. As early as 1858, another article, also in
the The North American Review, asserted that Pow-
er’s cages “were merely receptacles suspended in the
waters of the bay to enable her to watch the habits of
marine animals” and that “the plan of maintaining the
balance of nature by means of plants was unknown
to her.”
Wardian case Until this point in time, it was still not clear how,
on a large scale, a self-contained water eco-system
could function, at least over a length of time.
The surgeon Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward had
already discovered in the early 1830s that
delicate plants such as ferns could flour-
ish in nearly airtight glass tanks. The
microclimate, which stabilized itself
inside the tank, allowed the plants to
be more or less oblivious to external
temperature changes and pollutants.
The latter was an important factor for
Ward, who lived in the middle of Lon-
don’s docklands. Additionally, hardly
any new water was required as the evap-
orating water condensed on the glass and
was reabsorbed by the plants. These small
30
Another illustration of the Alecton trying
to catch an approximately 4,000-pound
squid—120 miles northeast of Tenerife.
After a three-hour hunt, a rope was thrown
around the squid. The rope caught on
the large rear fins and with one swift
movement cut through the soft body.
The squid submerged and vanished.
Plants of the submarine world
Opposite page:
Submarine landscape
Following page:
Parasitic anemone (Calliactis
parasitica)
hothouses were soon being mass-produced and used
as “miniature gardens” in places where the view out
of one’s window was less than appealing, or by breed-
ers who could not afford their own hothouses. In 1836
Ward suggested using the principle of his tanks for
tropical animals, and in 1841 he filled one with aquatic
plants and toy fish, et voila: it flourished without con-
stantly requiring new water. Concurrent with Ward,
others in Europe were creating similar contraptions:
around 1838 the French zoologist Felix Dujardin was
also said to have owned a saltwater aquarium, though
he did not actually use this term; and in his book A
History of British Sponges and Lithophytes, published
in 1842, a certain Dr. Johnstone mentioned glasses in
which he had kept small corals, a starfish, and mus-
sels for two months.
In 1846 the marine zoologist Anna Thynne, wife of
the Reverend Lord John Thynne, sub-dean of West-
minster Abbey, transported some stone corals from
Torquay on the south coast of England to her London
home in a clay container filled with salt water. She
subsequently placed the animals in two glass bowls
in order to analyze them in greater detail. At first she
exchanged the water in the bowls every second day,
but soon her reserve of salt water was gone. Thynne
decided to reuse the old water after moving it back
and forth in a receptacle for forty-five minutes in front
of an open window (a rather monotonous chore likely
left to her housemaid). This “new,” enriched water
now supplied the corals with sufficient oxygen again.
When Thynne returned from one of her journeys,
her house was a place of uproar and confusion: the
asexual and fissiparous animals had, as is their nature,
reproduced, throwing the servants into a state of
panic. They had tried to stop the animals from repro-
ducing by placing several stones in the bowl, but their
efforts were in vain. A few years later, in 1849, Thynne
also added seaweed and was thus able to maintain
35
Corals
36
inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide while plants
do the opposite, absorbing carbon dioxide and, under
the influence of light, releasing oxygen—the prin-
ciple of photosynthesis; as fish eat insects and small
snails, they excrete substances that are also benefi-
cial to plants; additionally, small water snails eat the
parasitic algae that develop in tanks. Warington’s
experiment yielded a perfect equilibrium, an aquatic
perpetuum mobile!
Industrially manufactured glass, an important pre-
condition for the further distribution of transparent
tanks, was now easy to obtain and, after the repeal-
ing of the glass tax in Great Britain in 1845, also less
expensive. At the first World’s Fair in London in 1851,
the Crystal Palace, 1,848 by 454 feet, was the epitome
of industrialized glass-and-steel production. It took
two thousand workers seven months to construct using
pre-manufactured and standardized components.
37
“A St ro n g , In t e n sive D e sire”
The Propagandist
38
and plants, distinguishing it as Freshwater Aquarium,
if the contents be fluviatile, or a Marine Aquarium, if
[the contents are saltwater-based].
Gosse was born in 1810 in Poole, in the south
of England, the son of an impoverished traveling min-
iature-painter. As a young man Gosse made his way
across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, where he dealt
with seal and cod fleets in Carbonear harbor. In his
early twenties he bought a copy of the book Essays
on the Microscope at an auction and devoted himself
whole-heartedly to collecting insects; for two years he
documented every insect he could get hold of. Along
with some of his friends, he decided to move to main-
land Canada in hopes of establishing a rural commune
and opening a museum of stuffed birds. After both
ventures failed, Gosse returned to England, where he
found work as a teacher in Hackney until he received
an invitation from the Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge to write An Introduction to
Zoology. In researching his subject, Gosse met sev-
eral other naturalists and began to write articles for
scientific journals. This inspired him to write a book
on the findings of the explorer Sir James Clark Ross,
who since 1818 had traveled throughout the Pacific
and Arctic discovering a wide variety of marine flora
and fauna. In 1844 The Ocean became an unexpected
success for its publisher and was reprinted numer-
ous times over the next forty years. Gosse’s new-
found notoriety led to future opportunities to study
the ocean world, and he left his past dalliances with
entomology and zoology behind. In the fall of 1844
he went to Jamaica—a trip made possible by an avid
seashell collector, who financed Gosse’s journey in
return for additions to his collection. Gosse’s time
in Jamaica resulted in three very successful books,
and the author became an important voice among the
publishing naturalists of the period. Writing became
the autodidact’s livelihood.
39
Upon his return from Jamaica, Gosse became a
devout Christian. Through his wife, Emily Bowes,
he became involved with a sect called the Plymouth
Brethren Movement. Life was then dictated by the
monotony of seemingly endless prayers; reading
novels and poems as well as going to the theater
or singing temporal songs was forbidden, and even
social contacts outside the brotherhood were not
permitted. Gosse strongly believed that Jesus Christ
would return to Earth before his own death. Under
this sense of urgency, he set about to work on several
book projects, all of which dealt with life on the coast.
Gosse could either be found sitting behind his desk or
working outside where, dressed in his black suit, he
fervently poked around in the silt of the tidal shallows
or—even during heavy surf—meticulously examined
the water holes in rocks for any living creature. Gosse
became an authority for everything connected to
coastal fauna. His frequent speeches in London were
always met with acclaim and adoration.
An excursion
along the English
coast
40
without having to descend into the depths using com- Philip Henry
plicated diving equipment. He expressed amusement Gosse on a
rocky beach
about a French zoologist, Henri Milne-Edwards, who
stalked around at the bottom of the Mediterranean
wearing a waterproof suit, special glasses, and an air
pipe in order to take a closer look at the submarine
world. All this was so much easier to achieve, Gosse
proclaimed, in the safe environment of one’s own
four walls!
In his many long-winded “Let us visit the caves of a miniature ocean,
reports about his coastal The gorgeous sea-flowers and worms to behold—
Actinia, rose-finger’d, ever in motion;
excursions Gosse told his
Phyllodoce, liveried in emerald and gold.”
readers that the aquarium —The Aquarium
was the objective, but that
many obstacles still had to be overcome. One’s rela-
tion with nature required a cautious and respectful
approach, for its exploration was, in Gosse’s mind,
a spiritual exercise. For Gosse, religion and natural
science went hand in hand: “it brings us, in some
sense, into the presence of God,” he said. “Or rather
it gives us cognizance of Him, and reveals to us some
of his essential attributes.”
Nowadays, we might associate colorful fish or fan-
and feather-like algae with the aquarium. But Gosse’s
41
pioneer aquarium contained an amazing bundle of
marine fauna and flora. Prior to collecting the ani-
mals, it was important to collect the plants, which
were responsible for the oxygen in the tank. For this,
Gosse recommended the day after a full moon or
new moon, as the tide is then as far out as possible
and areas usually covered with water become visible.
Armed with a covered collecting basket, stone and
glass jars, two or three smaller vials, and some hammers
and chisels, he ventured out to the ledges of rock at
the edge of the sea. He was especially drawn to rough
and sharp crevices—those that any intelligent hiker
would try to avoid at all costs—because it was here
that the desired plants tried to hide:
We lift up the hanging mass of olive weed (Fucus) from
the edge, and find the sides of the clefts often fringed
with the most delicate and lovely forms of sea-weed;
such for example, as the winged Delesseria, (D. alata)
which grows in thin, much-cut leaves of the richest
crimson hue, and the feathery Ptilota (P. plumosa) of
a duller red.
The plant had to be removed together with a piece
of the rock on which it grew; only this way did it have
a chance of survival. After skillful chiseling (often
under water), each piece of grass found its temporary
home in a receptacle that had been brought along. It
was even more important to have a suitable transport
container handy when collecting animals. According
to Gosse, a collector should always be watchful and
alert, as strange creatures of various forms and shapes
could appear at any moment.
Upon returning from his seaside excursion, Gosse
would begin the process of transferring his findings
from the temporary tanks into his marine aquarium.
The exterior of Gosse’s aquarium already resembled
the familiar rectangular glass tank with birchwood
beading. It was two feet long, one foot wide, one
foot deep, with the sides and ends consisting of glass
42
The Aquarium,
published by
Philip Henry
Gosse: The
Ancient Wrasse,
title page
43
it dawned on Gosse that the consumption of oxygen
would soon exceed its supply. The first week of his
experiment proved to be successful (apart from one or
two attacks on weaker animals by predatory species).
But three days into the second week a number of
animals died, and the water developed an unpleasant
smell due to those that had died in the sanctuary of
the stones. After thoroughly cleaning the tank, Gosse
carried on with his experiment with the remaining
fauna and flora.
44
Aesop shrimp
45
starfish, anemone, jellyfish, sea horse: mineral/dead,
fauna/flora, male/female? These unanswered questions
and blurred concepts become a bundle of mysteri-
ous categories and metamorphoses that take place
according to still unknown laws.
With immense fascination Gosse turned toward
Sea crab and those creatures that build some sort of relation-
small shrimp
ship but can hardly be differentiated as individuals.
The alliance between whelks, hermit-crabs, and sea
anemones is, in Gosse’s view, simply brilliant:
Many persons who know a Whelk as well as possible,
hesitate when they see the familiar shell tenanted, not
by the great black-spotted Mollusk, but by a mongrel
between Crab and Lobster, with stout, red, pinch-
ing claws, and long, jointed, and pointed legs. And
still more mysterious does the thing look, when two
thirds of the shell itself is enclosed in a thick mass of
purple-spotted flesh, through the midst of which the
busy Crab his poking his head and limbs. In truth it
is a strange affair, this threefold alliance of Whelk,
Hermit-crab, and Cloak-anemone.
In fact it is only a relationship between two living
creatures, because only the whelk’s shell remains,
no longer inhabited by the original mollusks.
Gosse defined the crab as “the scavenger of
the sea,” which, like wolves and hyenas,
devoured everything alive or dead. Also
known as animal flowers, polyps, or by its
scientific term “Actinia,” the sea anemone, with
its color-changing tentacles, can often be found sit-
ting on stones on the ocean bed, expanding to great
Her- lengths before shrinking to a tenth of its size. Equally
mit crab in a fascinating, pieces of the creature could break away
Cerite shell and a
seahorse
and develop into new animals. Due to its flower-like
appearance, the sea anemone was for a long time mis-
takenly considered to be the “missing link” between
plants and animals. The symbiosis of hermit-crab and
sea anemone is—according to Gosse—open for all
46
The symbiosis of
hermit crab and
sea anemone
47
biological symbiosis. As we know today, sea anemo-
nes use their nematocysts to keep octopuses away
from the crab. The sea anemone, on the other hand,
profits from this, gaining a much bigger habitat due
to its host’s movements. Additionally, it can ingest
some of the crab’s prey as its mouth directly faces the
masticatory organs of the crab. This relationship can,
however, end in tragedy: if the hermit-crab can-
not find enough food, it will eat the sea anemone.
Although the mystery of this relationship has been
solved, scientists still have much to study in the sea
anemones, such as the question of its age.
48
living museum, an inversion of Noah’s Ark—all species Sea anemones
of marine fauna and flora, safely held amidst a dry
environment. He stubbornly denied the transitory
character of the aquarium; museums, collections,
and the endless, often compulsive classification of
natural species remained his central points of study,
resulting in extreme laboratory experiments on these
forms. Gosse tried to achieve the impossible—to put
life into the “collecting cases” that had been designed
centuries earlier for lifeless objects. The aquarium
comprised things that—at least under the conditions
of Gosse’s day—did not really belong together. At the
time, the prospect of experiencing vivid nature cre-
ated great excitement; the transition from the static
goldfish bowl to colorful collections of enigmatic
aquatic animals and plants in an aquarium was a
natural extension of the trend.
49
own home. The aquarium acts as a mediator between
animal and observer.
Gosse had a way of expressing his enthusiasm in
his books and articles that positively stirred the bour-
geoisie. His numerous lectures on oceanic subjects
always caused a sensation. According to the Victorian
magazine, the Literary Gazette, published in London,
Gosse had “dived into all those decorated palaces
which had unassertively been kept under lock and
key by old Neptune for such a long time”; another
chronicler wrote that “all the world wanted to possess
an aquarium to verify his assertions and repeat his
experiments”; the magazine Blackwoods even recom-
mended that children should not see the book, other-
wise there would be no peace and quiet in the house
until the children were finally allowed to have an
aquarium. But the burgeoning fad needed more than
Gosse’s contagious enthusiasm to be a success: it
also had to please the eye. High-quality illustrations,
which were quite rare at the time, therefore played an
important role in the book’s success. The colorfulness
of sea creatures was still largely unknown, but Gosse
was not unacquainted with the drawing and printing
techniques of the period. Thanks to the skills of his
father, Gosse was able to produce the illustrations for
the book himself. The Aquarium was more than a cul-
tural sensation: it was also a financial success, with
earnings of about 805 pounds (roughly 60,000 U.S.
dollars today). A year later, the smaller Handbook to
the Marine Aquarium was published for those who
had not been able to afford the first book.
50
51
Ocean crabs
Previous page:
Plumose anemone
52
Ocean annelids
Following page:
Dragonet fish, monkfish and
seaweed (underwater along
the Heligoland coastline)
53
Victorian ladies
observing an
aquarium,
around 1860
55
Lloyd’s aquarium
warehouse
56
A collecting
expedition along
the coast
57
in trouble” now-a-days, because the thousands who set
up aquaria, without the least idea that to be success-
ful they must be managed on philosophical principles,
have long ago given them up as “troublesome.”
Quite often, the individual experience of the par-
lor gave way to the collective experience of the large
public aquariums found in Brighton and other coastal
resorts. An interest for the ocean remained in Great
Britain, but it shifted from the shores to the depths
of the ocean. In spite of the huge costs, those who
could afford it sailed out to sea in the 1860s to hunt
for creatures using a dredger—a net tied between a
rectangular steel frame.
Around this time, in 1859, Charles Darwin
announced his theory about the origin of
species. Later, as Darwin’s theory of evolution
became widely acknowledged, Gosse’s own
theologically based idea of evolution lost more
Typical dredger and more of its credibility among scientists, which
with hemp tassels caused him great pain. He became very melancholic
and abandoned himself to his varying moods, sur-
rounded by his grandchildren, butterflies, orchids—
and his aquarium.
58
From Sa lt to Fre sh wa t e r A qu arium
The Lake in a Glass
59
both the church and the state displayed great reser-
vations. Proponents of the natural sciences set out to
spread the word, earning money by writing articles
in magazines and newspapers, publishing lavishly
illustrated books, and going on lecture tours. Along
with adult education centers and workers’ educa-
tion associations, the aquarium became a means for
Rossmässler to realize his dream of the democratiza-
tion of knowledge and society.
60
The first
illustration of
a freshwater
aquarium in Die
Gartenlaube
61
Various types of plants determined the freshwater
aquarium. It was supposed to be a “small botanical
garden island” with very little space for a few small
fish. Indeed, the article listed and described over fifty
different species of plants, while the only recom-
mended animals were the marsh snail, the pond snail,
the freshwater pearl mussel, the goldfish and, if neces-
sary, the weather loach or pond-breeding salamander.
An aquarium was not the place for “predatory fish”
such as the trout, pike, or perch. For Rossmässler,
his recommended combination characterized a self-
sufficient aquarium in which the evaporated water
had to be renewed only occasionally. It was also,
he asserted, an “effective instrument to familiarize
children with nature.”
What had caused this sudden change from salt-
to freshwater aquariums? Was it an attempt to dis-
tance oneself from Gosse, or had the handling and
maintaining of saltwater aquariums already come up
against too many limitations? In his booklet Das Süss-
wasser-Aquarium: Eine Anleitung zur Herstellung und
Pflege desselben (The Freshwater Aquarium: A Guide
for Making and Maintaining It), Rossmässler wrote
that it would require a mighty force to raise the small,
moderate freshwater aquarium above the minds of
the natural scientists and to expose it to the general
public. He even explained the depths of the pond as
if they were the abysses of the ocean:
Aquarium with
sea anemones
and starfish, 1857
62
Freshwater
aquarium with
marsh plants,
around 1890
63
a rare grace in its homely display of waving banners
and familiar fishes.”
Two camps resulted from this debate. While some
chose the easier-to-maintain freshwater aquariums,
others preferred the challenges and difficulties of
domesticating creatures from the deep. Maintain-
ing a saltwater aquarium was, quite simply, much
more exciting. Those of the first camp argued that
suitable water was nearly impossible to find. Where
could salt water be obtained in landlocked cities? As
an author in an 1889 issue of Naturwissenschaftliche
Wochenschrift (Natural Science Weekly) stated,
the practice of importing salt water left much to be
desired. When it finally arrived at its inland destina-
tion, “it did not really resemble utilizable sea-water
and often had a pungent smell.” In this case, the last
resort was a process of filtration, cleaning, and aer-
ating, which more often than not resulted in water
that was still unsuitable and was eventually thrown
down the drain. The solution to the problem was the
preparation of artificial salt water, which was easy
enough for chemists, who dissolved in water exact
amounts of common salt, sodium bromine, potas-
sium sulfate, sodium sulfate, gypsum, magnesia, and
magnesium chloride. This option was beyond most,
however, and the convenience of the freshwater
aquarium ultimately prevailed when it came to ama-
teur hobbyists.
The saltwater aquarium has nevertheless retained
its fascination for private households. Although only
a small number of aquarists have ever maintained
one, it is still with us. Reinhold Hoffmann, aquarist
and author of numerous articles in German specialist
magazines, was an accomplished advocate of the salt-
water aquarium, maintaining that it was immensely
more satisfying than its freshwater counterpart: “The
inhabitants will unfold freshness and beauty, equiva-
lent to that of their relatives in the open sea.”
64
Aquaria
scenery from
Rossmässler’s
first script, 1857
65
try to gradually adapt marine animals to fresh water
and treat them as if they had never lived in anything
else? Eels and salmon served as role models because,
though they originate from the sea, they can often
be found swimming in rivers. Flounders and stick-
lebacks also feel at home in both types of water. In
Wilhelmshaven, on the North German coast, Hoff-
mann saw sea anemones, crabs, and fish that had
endured such “forced measures” and had survived in
fresh water for several months, though he also noted
that even the fresh water in Wilhelmshaven might
have been salty due to its close proximity to the North
Sea. To test his theories, Hoffman looked to animals
from the Baltic Sea because of its low salt content (as
well as others found furthest east), which he regarded
as suitable for adaptation. The crucial point was that
a lot of patience was required to make the transi-
tion from salt to fresh water as smooth as possible,
otherwise immediate death would have been the
result. Although here and there encouraging reports
were published on successful adaptations of flounders,
people seem to have been more fascinated by the
idea than the actual results, and the enthusiasm over
this new method seems to have faded as fast as it
had arrived.
While some tried to overturn the laws of nature
when it came to presenting marine life outside of its
natural environment, others turned to an arguably
more absurd solution: the “alcoholariums”—aquari-
ums filled not with water, but with alcohol. This type
of preservation was exhibited by the Berlin Museum
of Oceanography (later destroyed in World War II)
and was featured in a newspaper report from 1906:
The creatures swimming in [the alcoholarium] are, as
one will notice upon closer attention, already dead,
preserved in the poisonous liquid, thus maintaining
their full brilliancy of color for centuries to come. Alco-
hol destroys living tissue, but preserves the dead.
66
The work of Leipzig-based glass sculptors Leo-
pold Blaschka and his son Rudolf should also
be mentioned here. From 1857 onward, they
produced glass models of invertebrates
that, as far as they could be kept in cap-
tivity, quickly lost their colorfulness. These
models gave a good impression of marine
Glass
animals in places where it was too complicated
model of jellyfish to keep a saltwater aquarium. Many of the Blaschkas’
models are still on display at the Peabody Museum
of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard Univer-
sity. These fake animals truly have transcended the
processes of nature; they perfectly complement the
dioramas of natural history museums where stuffed
lions and gazellas helped to recreate the illusion of
dangerous situations.
67
A r r i v in g in t h e U n it e d St a t e s
Aquarist Societies and Magazines
68
To visit the inhabitants of the sea, in the constrained
manner that would have been compulsory in a being
formed like man, would have been of little use as
regards biographical details. What, then, was to be
done? To bring them to us, to be sure, since we could
not go comfortably to them—to have them up in a
witness-box and make them give an account of them-
selves. But it was necessary to do this in a particu-
lar way, for fish are no more at their ease out of the
water, than we are under it; it was necessary to bring
a portion of their element with them, and to have
all their little comforts about them, such as stones,
sand, mud, and marine-plants; it was necessary, in
short, for the purposes of science, to have a piece of
the sea laid upon our table: and, being necessary, this
was done.
If any readers had still not followed the recom-
mendation at the end of the article to buy the book,
they would surely do so after reading the vivid six-
page report, “My Aquarium,” published in February
1858 in The Atlantic Monthly. Although his name was
not mentioned once in the article, the descriptions of
the “Bernhard crab” or the “ghost-like prawns” were The Family
undeniably from Gosse. “Come and sit by this indoor Aquarium, title
page
sea, day by day, and learn to love its people”: what
reader could have resisted such an invitation?
Published in 1858, Henry D. Butler’s slim book The
Family Aquarium, or Aqua Vivarium—“a complete
adaptation to American peculiarities,” as he wrote in
the preface—was one of the first two books written
in the United States that dealt exclusively with the
aquarium. His explanations on how to maintain the
aquarium—very similar to those in today’s How-to
books—are less interesting than his analysis and the
embedded correlations he begins with. Within a short
period of time the aquarium, this extremely “attrac-
tive instrument,” had become a “necessary luxury in
every well-appointed household” and had completely
69
Feeding actinians replaced the old-fashioned “fish-globe” in Europe as
well as America:
Its neatness and elegance; its fascinating combina-
tion of subtle philosophy and commonplace every day
facts; its ever-changing, never wearying feature, [sic]
of kaleidoscopic novelty; its tempting peculiarity, to
thoughtful minds, as an introduction to natural history;
all constitute an attraction as chaste as it is beautiful,
as refined as it is irresistible.
For Butler, the aquarium represented an extraor-
dinary combination of science and art and became
the epitome of nineteenth-century discoveries, just as
important as the telescope or microscope. It finally
allowed its observers to step into unknown dimen-
sions, allowing them to view the unknown secrets of
the deep dark ocean. Butler did not hesitate to men-
tion his own theory of the aquarium, that the new
invention is “a faithful copy…a miniature facsimile
of the fascinating reality in its exquisite colors, and
replete with its inexplicable revelations.”
Arthur M. Edwards’s Life Below the Waters or the
Aquarium in America was published on the heels of
70
Butler’s book. Edwards noted shops in New York that
already sold aquariums and the necessary accesso-
ries, instructed how to set up an aquarium at home,
and introduced some of the ocean’s creatures, but a
devastating review in The Atlantic Monthly from
September 1858, which accused it of being hastily
printed, poorly conceived, and filled with errors,
crushed its chances at success.
The enthusiasm found in these books and maga-
zines was not solely responsible for the growth of the
aquarium’s popularity on this side of the Atlantic. The
United States had its own share of pioneers in home
aquariums. William Stimson, collector and trustee
of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
in 1849, is believed to have owned the first func-
tional aquariums—as many as seven or eight—in the
United States; if The North American Review of July
1858 can be believed, he had not even been aware of
contemporary experiments in Great Britain.
A certain Elizabeth Emerson Damon from Windsor,
Vermont is also believed to have been among the first
owners of an aquarium in the United States, accord-
ing to William E. Damon (whose relationship to Miss
Damon is unspecified), as written in his 1879 volume
Ocean Wonders:
So far as I have been able to ascertain, the pioneer
inductor of the private aquarium in this country was
Miss Elizabeth Emerson Damon...and her first essays
were made with the simple apparatus of a two-quart
glass jar, with a few fish, some tadpoles and snails,
and some Potamogeton (common pond weed); but
so perfectly balanced was this young aquarium with
animal and vegetable life, that I fell in love with it at
first sight.
William Damon was a successful businessman who
worked as the superintendent of the credit department
at Tiffany’s in New York. In his spare time, he com-
mitted himself to natural science and oceanography,
71
Illustration of an
attack by a giant
squid in Ocean
Wonders
72
Looking back, Hugo Mulertt was hugely respon-
sible for the increase in private hobby aquariums in
the United States Born in Leipzig, Mulertt came to
America around 1869 with the second big wave of
German immigrants, settling down in Cincinnati and
becoming a well known aquarist and florist
in the subsequent decade. As Albert Klee
notes in his book The Toy Fish, Mulertt’s
shop offered a whole range of products:
aquariums made of cast iron, sheet metal,
terra cotta, or “Cincinnati faience” ceramics,
as well as all the necessary accessories such
as tuft stone ornaments, ready fish feed, and
a special sort of cement for aquariums. He
also had his own ingenious goldfish hatch-
ery and was appointed the Assistant Commissioner Hugo Mulertt
of Fishes for the District of Southern Ohio. Mulertt
discovered that the area surrounding Cincinnati was
perfect for cultivating fish and became a very suc-
cessful breeder of German carp in this region, no
doubt thanks to the knowledge he gained from pio-
neers such as Seth Green and Stephen H. Ainsworth
who, according to the November 1868 Harper’s New
Monthly Magazine, had for decades been breeding
salmon and trout in order to release them into rivers.
From the end of the 1870s, Mulertt additionally con-
centrated on importing wild aquarium plants from
Floor plan of
Mulertt’s fish
hatchery
73
Mulertt’s catalog
74
Brooklyn, New York, where local aquarist groups wel-
comed him with open arms.
Like Mulertt, Rear Admiral Daniel Ammen of the
U.S. Navy also rendered outstanding services to the
import of fish. In 1878 he apparently presented the
U.S. Fish Commission with goldfish imported from
Japan. William P. Seal from Philadelphia also played
an important role in the breeding of goldfish, when in
1873 he took charge of the aquariums at the oceanog-
raphy station in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. A few
years later the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington,
D.C. commissioned him with the construction and
supervision of the U.S. Fish Commission’s exhibit at
the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Previously only adored by a small number of far-
flung individuals, the aquarium was now more and
more a community venture.
75
The Aquarium,
title page
76
published for the first time in October 1876 by the
natural scientist W. S. Ward, is considered to be the
world’s first aquarium magazine, though it unfortu-
nately ceased publication just seven months later.
The issues consisted of only eight or ten pages but
were packed with advertisements, articles, and col-
umns such as “For Our Young Folks—Told by Uncle
Octopus.” From 1878 until the early 1880s, Mulertt’s
own magazine The Aquarium appeared in Cincin-
nati. Ten years later, after relocating to Brooklyn, he
resumed publishing the quarterly, which comprised
twenty-five pages and contained news of everything
dear to aquarists, such as the newest aquatic species
or fish disease. The establishment of these special-
ized magazines, which were eagerly swapped by the
interested parties, was another major step toward the
popularization of the aquarium.
77
E x ot ic Spe cie s a n d Tra n spo r t
Diverging Beliefs
78
Exotic toy fish
79
vain razzmatazz? Those that felt it was the former
criticized the breeding of exotic fish and objected to
such inane doings as aquaristic societies handing out
prizes for special songbooks dedicated to the hobby,
which could put the serious character of natural-
ism at risk. Hairsplitting became the order of the
day: “Is the ‘vivarium sport’ just science or scientific
rigor?” asked one specialist magazine. Daum believes
that the whole amateur science movement had a
“chameleon-like appearance,” always moving between
“hobby scientist and private society bliss on the one
hand and academic expectations on the other.”
Pictures of elephants and giraffes being trans-
ported halfway around the world to zoological gar-
dens where they were then presented to awestruck
audiences were commonplace. But there was no such
fanfare for fish. If they were imported from far away,
which had become quite common since the 1890s,
their tranquil journey took place in jugs and boxes
and was not accompanied by the roars and clamor
that followed apes and lions. Nor was there any pro-
test—ethical questions that dogged the displacement
of mammals and birds were absent, for the transpor-
tation of marine animals was carried out, as Gustav
Jäger noted, without any noticeable side effects:
While animals of the skies and land suffer to some
degree under their displacement into a cage and
Advertisement
for Mulertt’s
Condensed Fish
Food, 1883
80
experience a change in their behavior, eventually liv-
ing in an unnatural habitat which prevents the appear-
ance of harmonic impressions, life unfolds naturally in
an aquarium where animals are exactly the same as in
the wild.
The suffering of the fish in the martyrdom of aquar-
ium life could not be seen. Despite occasional maga-
zine articles on the “appropriate keeping” of animals
or on how to counteract animal cruelty, there was no
real pity for fish, and the legitimacy of the aquarium
was never debated. The question of whether the fish
were being kept inappropriately in aquariums was
rarely asked, if ever. It is only as recent as 2003 that
Scottish scientists at the Roslin Institute in Edin-
burgh discovered that fish could actually feel pain.
The transportation of fish over long distances is
a science in itself. According to the Berlin aquarist
Paul Nitsche, it was “almost easier to import a living
elephant than a fish the size of your finger.” The dif-
ficulties became very clear in an article published
in 1876 in the New York Aquarium Journal that dealt
with the transport of eighty-eight Kingyo goldfish
from Japan to the United States:
The captain of the steamer...built a tank on the
steamer to accommodate them, and took in a supply
of river water; but it was soon found that the motion of
the ship dashed the fish against the sides of the tank
and many were lost. To obviate this a smaller tank was
built and suspended like a compass, which counter-
acted the motion of the ship; but notwithstanding all
the care bestowed on them only fifteen arrived in San
Francisco, all in a very weak condition. Of these, eight
subsequently died.
Transport within the United States was less diffi-
cult. Hugo Mulertt sent his fish from Ohio and later
from Brooklyn right across the country to San Fran-
cisco. For transport via rail he used soldered cans
that were generic to the coal oil trade, which were
81
fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter with a five-inch
opening at the top. The tops were perforated and thus
open to the air, and water occupied four-fifths of the
total can volume. This method was used extensively
until the arrival of shipping bags made of plastic in
the 1950s.
Around the turn of the century, Nitsche wrote a
manual for the import of fish from oversea locales,
which also gave seamen, captains, and other voyag-
ers instructions on how to earn easy money with an
additional income. Natives caught the animals usu-
ally with dip nets or cast nets in the wild. Sometimes
they even dammed small branches of a river or used
toxins made from bark and leaves. A small emission of
these toxins into the water made the fish numb, limit-
ing their movements. Generally, imports took place
randomly—if space was available, fish were taken on
board. It was always a surprise to discover what had
actually made the journey.
Jugs made of zinc plate, approximately three feet
in diameter and with a wooden base, were recom-
mended for importing fish. The jugs’ outer and inner
walls had to be painted white due to the tropical sun
and to prevent oxidation. They were hung in robust
boxes to avoid being crushed during heavy seas
Simple zinc jug (although these measures were unnecessary if they
for transporting
fish (above) and were transported on larger passenger vessels).
the box in which Enameled jugs were preferred over zinc-plated
they were hung to
jugs because they tolerated salt water and did not
reduce the ship’s
movement affect- undergo chemical bonding, which could harm the
ing the jugs, 1901 gills or inner organs of the fish. Transportation of the
fish always took place in open jugs, placed into
wicker baskets to protect the enamel. Nitsche
reported about one of his friends, a naval
officer, who had successfully used a big pine
tub—the type usually used for doing laundry
—to transport telescope and fantail fish from
China and Japan. The tub was tightly closed
82
with wooden slats that allowed sufficient light to
enter but prevented water from escaping. If these
tubs were not completely filled, then there was no
need to change the water during a six-to-eight-
week voyage. Following this logic, any other
type of clean barrel could be used.
A “sheet steel fish jug” with a special
lid was also thought to be suitable. An
integrated aeration device operated from
the outside by bellows or, even better, a
bicycle foot pump, supplied the jug with fresh
air. Stewards, responsible for the import, stored these Specially
prepared wooden
jugs in their cabins for the journey from New York to tub, 1901, and
Europe. It was even possible to adapt “difficult fish” (below) sheet
steel fish jug with
to the still water of the containers. Wires, canvas, and
bellow-aeration
nets were all used to keep away cigarette butts and device
tar and coal dust from the funnels, to stop cats from
finding a tasty meal, and to prevent the contents
escaping from the jugs.
The biggest dangers for the fish were suf-
focation due to overpopulation, eating food
unfit for consumption, and contamination
from fish that did not survive the journey;
when exchanging the water it was also
important to remember that the waters
varied from place to place. Nitsche thus
recommended to gradually adapt the fish
to the exchange:
If the journey, for example, began with Shanghai
water and new water was taken onboard in Hong
Kong; at first use 2/3 Shanghai and only 1/3 Hong
Kong, then 1/2 Shanghai and 1/2 Hong Kong, then 1/3
Shanghai and 2/3 Hong Kong and finally only Hong
Kong water.
The captain always had to be informed of the esti-
mated water consumption, even if that meant that
he would prohibit the load. Savvy importers could
often win the captain over by pointing out that the
83
used water could always be employed to swab the
decks. Equally important to fish transporters was the
temperature during the journey. The best months for
transportation from East Asia were April to October,
while fish that were accustomed to lower tempera-
tures could be fetched from New York during the
winter months.
Once on land, subsequent transport by wagon or on
horseback should, according to Nitsche, be categori-
cally avoided, as this could cause the ruin of the whole
venture at the last minute. The fish could be violently
thrown about and perish. Instead, the fish should be
carried either in jugs or in tanks hanging from a pole.
In Nitsche’s opinion transportation in hanging jugs
was ideal, as the fish would not be thrown about even
during a storm. Special rules applied for the shipment
of marine animals: actinians, sea urchins, snails, and
mussels were packed with seaweed or pieces of sponge
into baskets; sessile animals with stones; and crabs
in tanks with little water as they “have to have the
possibility to stick their noses out from time to time.”
The transport of aquatic plants took place in boxes
that were also used for shipping grapes, though in the
plants’ case, everything was additionally wrapped in
moss and damp paper.
Transportation involved other dangers too: swin-
dles and dirty tricks were daily business in the toy fish
trade. Sailors stole and sold fish, and exporters deliv-
ered unordered goods. There were also cases where
animals were delivered several times via c.o.d., but
not accepted by the addressee; the postal service
then auctioned off these animals at ridiculously low
prices to the very same person. Agreements saying
that only animals that survived transport had to be
paid for were similarly tricky. It was not uncommon,
according to Nitsche, that “the animals, dead as a
dodo, were offered at exorbitantly high prices, but
quite often also at give-away prices, sometimes via
84
Transport of
aquariums on
horse-drawn
carriages, in
the background
the zoological
mail-order house
Glaschker in
Leipzig, Germany,
around 1900
85
Fa sh io n Sh ow
Typology of Parlor Aquariums
86
Aquarium
installation in the
Maurisches Haus
at Frankfurt Zoo,
around 1860
87
on a perch and watch the fish swimming
around. The idea was not new: already
in the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury goldfish and canaries had become
reluctant parlor companions. Some
people even believed to see a strange
sort of interaction between fish and
bird. They would sit for hours gazing at
the animals and actually convince them-
Combination
selves that the fish was dancing to the
of cage and
aquarium song of the imprisoned bird.
Aquariums were often placed on win-
dow sills or even, as shown in an exam-
ple from Lloyd’s 1858 catalog, attached to
windows as window boxes. The placing of an aquar- Salon aquarium
ium in front of a window (whether indoors or out- with fountain
Window aquarium,
around 1858
88
mirror fixed at an angle above it. This caused the
plants to grow vertically toward the light and elimi-
nated the cast shadows. With its matte, milky light,
this aquarium took on a mystical appearance.
The sketch of a “terrace aquarium” surrounded by
flower pots dates from the 1890s. This construction
required an extremely robust iron frame onto which
three different-sized tanks were placed, one upon
the other, thus allowing enthusiasts to create various
environments and to separate animals that did not
Window aquarium appreciate each other’s company.
Some aquariums were hung on walls and func-
tioned as “moving pictures.” But these wall
aquariums presented hidden dangers, as Her-
mann Lachmann explained in Blätter für
Aquarien- und Terrarienfreunde:
Even though these look wonderful after
installation, the magnificence does not last
for long. It is just folly and extremely unsafe
since the aquarium is hanging on a wall. The
hooks could come loose allowing the whole
aquarium to come crashing down; what an
expensive mess that would be. Terrace aquarium
In contrast, a “floating sea” was a glass bell fifteen
inches in diameter and twenty-and-a-half inches high
Wall aquarium
89
that hung in front of a window inside the room.
This aquarium was advertised as being the solu-
tion in an 1859 edition of Kosmos Zeitschrift für alle
angewandten Naturwissenschaften (Kosmos Maga-
zine for all Applied Natural Sciences). Due to its
design, room space could be used for other pur-
poses if need be, a perfect view inside the aquarium
was always guaranteed, and above all it was cheaper
“floating sea” to install than other aquariums. The glass sphere was
aquarium, 1859 held by strong cords and placed in a kind of basket
to which the cords were attached. According to the
instructions, the three pieces of cord that support the
whole aquarium are connected to a piece of twisted
hemp string of the same strength. The hemp string is
fixed above the window and runs on one side through
two interconnected porcelain rings of finger width;
therefore it is possible to simply draw up the tank if
you desire to use the space in front of the window for
another purpose or if the windows are to be cleaned,
and can be lowered if the tank is to be cleaned
or replaced.
Seashells filled with bog soil were placed on the
floor of the aquarium as “flower pots.” With this final
detail, one could let the aquarium feel the effects of
nature like an outdoor pond: rainwater, fresh air, cool-
ness during the night, protection from the sun either
via a window blind or a strategically placed parasol,
and peace and quiet, because life in this little “float-
ing ocean” was best left to itself.
Another special model was the basin or pool aquar-
ium. This type originated in Great Britain and consisted
of a clay base that was placed in the ground of winter
gardens and hothouses. All these tanks had a rock con-
glomeration in the middle, on which marsh plants and
ferns protruded from underneath. In and around towns
these basins, which usually contained a fountain, were
seen as a replacement for natural ponds and pools that
had either dried up or been filled in. Though pleasant, a
90
Basin aquarium
in Chatsworth,
1849
91
Advertisement
for the
Wilhelminian
aquarium, 1895
92
mountainous backdrop or a miniature house in which
a child’s doll could “live.” The “ocean landscapes”
of aquariums were similarly filled with small tuff
grottos purchased from specialty shops or created
by the owners themselves out of cement. Another
variation were the small swimming islands made of
cork into which a small plant pot could be placed.
In response to this trend, specialized aquarist maga-
zines—such as an 1886 article in Isis—began to warn
of these “dangerous bits and pieces” and “exaggerated
affectations” such as small castle ruins, “since they
mask the simple and grand beauty of nature.”
93
copper cauldron, which was attached to the aquar-
ium and heated by a spirit or oil lamp. A pipe went
from the cauldron over the edge of the tank into the
water, while another pipe came out of the water and
back into the cauldron. The contraption was based
on the principle that warm water rises due to its low
specific weight, whereas cold water falls. The whole
device was triggered by sucking aquarium water into
the cauldron through a rubber hose until the caul-
dron was full. Subsequently, the flame underneath
the cauldron was lit. As soon as the
water was warm enough it rose from
the cauldron via the upper pipe and
entered the aquarium while the cold
water from the aquarium entered the
cauldron via the other pipe.
Reflectors were also available that
helped to diffuse light onto the surface
of the water, enabling a better view
inside the aquarium in the evenings or
on darker days. And the list of helpful
appliances for parlor aquariums did
not end here: further optimized foun-
tains in which the oxygen was caught
and dragged down by the falling water,
but also waterfall systems and elabo-
rate fountain mechanisms enriched
Aquarium with
simple aerator the spectrum of aquarium appliances. They were all
supposed to ensure a supply of oxygen and a move-
ment of water.
One parlor fountain manufactured in Germany
worked on the principle of the “Heron fountain.” A
continuous fountain was guaranteed by two airtight
iron jars that could be rotated around an axis and were
interconnected via a pipe. The water flowing from the
aquarium compressed the air in the lower jar and the
pressure forced the water in the upper jar to spurt
out through the pipe. When the upper jar was empty
94
and the lower one full, all it required was a
simple rotation of the jars around the axis to
restart the process.
One of the most complicated devices for
the aquarium had to be an aeration appara-
tus that required a three-page description in
the Naturwissenschaftlicher Wochenschrift
(Natural Science Weekly) in 1889. Two zinc
cauldrons, bellows, a regulator, and various
pipes were connected to create an instal-
lation that could have been mistaken for a
forerunner of the intravenous drip. It was
supported by a sort of gallows high up in
the room. Obviously its designer, the aquar-
ist Hermann Lachmann, realized that the
apparatus would reduce the overall aes-
thetic appearance of the aquarium, and he Parlor fountain
with Heron
pointed out that it should not stand right next to the fountain, 1892
tank, but rather be placed in the next room, the cellar,
or anywhere else out of sight. In this case the conduit
Aerator by
Hermann
Lachmann, 1889
95
would have to be extended and directed around the
edge of the room. But how did the thing function?
Lachmann tried to explain:
The water from the upper cauldron enters the bellows
d drop by drop, and is held there due to the back pres-
sure from the aquarium and the winding of the spiral
until sufficient water has collected in the bellows to
overcome the back pressure. It subsequently drains off
and entrains an amount of air from the bellows that is
greater than the actual volume of water. The air in the
lower cauldron is compressed by the inflowing water
and the incoming air and forced through its only escape
route pipe 3. From here it makes its way through the
regulator e and outflow pipe k to the spray nozzle z in
the aquarium, forming fine pearls in the water.
Lachmann’s aerator, which functioned without
any water consumption, could be constructed by
any plumber. Never mind how strange it all seemed
and looked, Lachmann contended, “the well-being
of the aquarium inhabitants will be more than enough
compensation.”
The aquarium and the habitat trapped inside
it had no chance of survival without the extremely
large and overpowering aeration apparatus, a symbol
of the industrial age if ever there was one. Indeed,
no longer was nature truly nature. In a period that
worshiped technical innovations and during which
mechanization took command, the aquarium did not
go unaffected. The running of an aquarium required
a substantial degree of technical know-how, and this
caused Lloyd to write an article for the American
Naturalist in 1876:
Aquarium work, being hydraulic engineering on a
small scale, is essentially the work of an engineer, and
not that of an architect, unless he is also an engineer
and a mathematician.
The aquarium had become an integral part of the
Victorian salon, living side by side with plants and
96
French aquarium,
1859
97
Moving images in the living room
“A Ne w Kin d o f Th e a te r”
The Large Aquariums
The interior of
the London Fish
House, the first
public aquarium
99
salt and freshwater aquariums. Some were attached
to the walls while others stood on tables in the middle
of the bright room, covered with slate to keep out sun-
light and dust. Given the aquarium was a brand new
apparatus, a water exchange system was still a far-
off, utopian idea; fresh salt water had to be brought
directly from the sea. Alexander Ussner, manager of
the Vienna aquarium, remembered in 1860:
A cry of admiration and astonishment went literally not
only around Europe, but around the whole civilized
world when this first water menagerie was opened to
the public. The colors and variety of the shapes and
forms previously only known to a few scholars unfolded
in front of their eyes, and their amazement spread by
word and mouth.
Soon thereafter, the legendary showman Phineas
This poster
T. Barnum, who seemed to have a sixth sense for all
advertised sorts of curiosities that audiences craved, appeared
Phineas T. on the aquarium stage. In 1856, shortly after a visit to
Barnum’s
curiosity: The
London where, as a bankrupt businessman, Barnum
“real” mermaid gave quite successful lectures on “The Art of Money
Making,” he started exhibit-
ing aquariums in his Ameri-
can Museum in New York.
The American Museum,
located on the corner of
Broadway and Ann Street
in Lower Manhattan until it
was destroyed by a great fire
in 1865, had been established
in 1841 and was an important
center for the development of
urban entertainment culture
in the nineteenth century.
Here, the aquarium was pre-
sented alongside the “wonders
of the world,” which included
a “real mermaid” (the torso of
100
“FeeJee Mermaid” was actually the upper body of a The Aquarial
Gardens, Boston
stuffed ape with the tail of a fish) and a “six-foot man-
1859
eating chicken.”
Other public aquariums soon followed. In December
1857 Scientific American informed its readers of an
aquarium that had been set up by the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington. Two years later, in 1859,
James Ambrose Cutting and Henry Butler, co-owner
of the American Museum and author of The Family
Aquarium, opened the Aquarial Gardens in a neo-
classical building on Bromfield Street in Boston. The
Boston Post hailed a completely new experience:
These Ocean Conservatories are filled with rare marine
animals imported and collected exclusively for this
establishment. They present us with a perfect and strik-
ing illustration of life beneath the waters.
The words of a flyer eagerly handed out to pass-
ersby were even more flowery:
The scene is at once wonderful and intensely beauti-
ful. Hours of delight may be spent watching the habi-
tats of the animals, seizing and devouring their prey
and disporting as freely as if they were still enjoying
their full freedom in the ocean or river.
101
Exterior view of Approximately forty basins containing twenty to
the aquarium thirty gallons of water were arranged in a circle on
in the Jardin
d’Acclimatation,
tables to form a large aquarium panorama. There
1860 were perch, crabs, starfish, sea anemones, snails,
periwinkles, sunfish, carp, sea ravens, flounders, rays,
jellyfish, clams, pickerel, sticklebacks, horned pout,
bass, and a few turtles. A man-eating shark was also
advertised, but only for a short while; apparently it
did not survive very long.
In Europe, where competition to open the most
impressive aquarium was in full swing, an aquarium
was developed in 1860 in the Jardin d’Acclimatation
in Paris. It was a windowless brick construction with
integrated wall aquariums and looked very much like
an arcade. Arthur Mangin, one of the most important
popularizers of the natural sciences in nineteenth-
century France, described the building’s interior as “a
completely new kind of theater, where the reality of
submarine life is displayed.” The lighting principles
102
were very different from those of the comparatively The corridor of
simple Fish House in London. The gallery was semi- the aquarium
in the Jardin
dark, the only light source emanating from above and d’Acclimatation,
entering the room via the transparent tanks. The pre- 1860
cise incidence of light was extremely important; too
much would lead to a high degree of algae, resulting
in turbid water and reduced transparency. Once visi-
tors had become accustomed to the light conditions,
a completely new optical experience awaited them,
according to Mangin:
As there are no surrounding objects to distract the
attention, one completely focuses on the living Poly-
rama, and because the concept of size is only relative,
the pictures start to take on larger and larger dimen-
sions, or their real dimensions vanish, only to reappear
in the observer’s perception.
The “Polyrama” refers to the “Polyrama Panoptique,”
or Diorama, which was invented by Louis Jacques
Mandé Daguerre in 1822. It is a stage designed to
103
accommodate changing light effects in a dark room,
where pictures move around the audience giving
them the feeling of being at the center of a wonder-
ful play. The technique was used to great effect at
the Jardin d’Acclimatation, making “one forget about
how many artificial resources had to be employed to
create such an exposition,“ according to the Deutsche
Bauzeitung (German Construction Magazine). In this
form and size—presented as a copy and simulacrum
of the submarine world—the aquarium became a
completely new experience, even for those who had
their own at home. Never before had visitors been
able to see so many marine creatures in such a con-
centrated form and without external influences. The
atmosphere created when large numbers of people
stood side by side to view the spectacle helped to
intensify the impact even more.
Along with the Fish House and the Jardin
d’Acclimatation, the short-lived Viennese Aquarium
Salon, established in 1860 by Gustav Jäger, was one
of the first public aquariums in Europe. Jäger, whose
name means “hunter” in German, was an entrepre-
neur in many fields. At one point he became well-
known for his design of natural woolen clothing and
was therefore called “the wool hunter;” his clothing
was sold through subsidiaries of the Austrian company
Benger and could be found in stores across Paris, Lon-
don, and New York. In 1854, when the Semmering rail-
road was completed, giving Vienna convenient access
to the Mediterranean Sea, Jäger became an avid
marine enthusiast. By 1858 he had begun experiment-
ing with small saltwater aquariums, and within two
more years, he managed to open aquariums to the
public. Sadly, the venture could not sustain itself, and
in four short years Jäger’s salon shut its doors.
In 1865 Die Gartenlaube stated that the Marine
Aquarium Temple at the Zoological Garden in Ham-
burg, an “Ocean Fairy Castle,” outshone the London
104
Fish House. “The temple of arts, the studio for the Fish transport
exhibition and culture of aquaristic life” consisted of over the Alps via
the Semmering
a salon with two galleries and ten large glass tanks at railroad in the
its center, which was surrounded by more tanks in late 1850s
various directions.
According to the Temple’s commemorative book-
let it was an overwhelming joy to observe the “silent
inhabitants of the ocean” while they were “gracefully
and magnificently resting, weightlessly swimming,
vividly playing, cunningly lurking or eagerly fighting.”
Water circulated through the basins, then was dis-
charged, cleaned, and aerated. Photosynthesis was
easy to observe, as described in Die Gartenlaube:
Like row after row of air bubbles ascending from
a glass of champagne, merry bubbles of liberated oxy-
gen fizz from the light-drenched plants at the bottom
of the tanks like delicate chains of diamonds. The
wonderful creatures therein enjoy this bubbly air
champagne and wave and coquet in a tipsy manner
with their colorful feather-like tails and gesticulate
with their numerous snatching fingers or fly and whiz
between the grottos and caves like merry boys running
home from school.
105
Cross section A very small, easily overlooked footnote pointed
of the Hamburg out, however, that this perfectly constructed aquar-
aquarium, 1865
ium was not suitable for common fish like herring
or mackerel, which were certain to die within their
first day in the tanks. Conclusion: “How little is
man able to mimic, what nature accomplishes
with ease.”
As more public aquariums were constructed,
new methods and visions were set forth. Aquarium
architects wanted to guide the audience’s fantasies
by making not only the tanks look like small rocky
landscapes and grottos, but also the exhibition rooms
themselves. The grotto fashion was a throwback to
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy, where the
Boboli Gardens in Florence once thrived. The grotto
style was to enjoy a powerful renaissance under the
forthcoming eclecticism, with one important differ-
ence: this time, rather than the grotto itself as the
center of attention, it now only served as a facade for
the main attraction. The visitors strolled through the
ancient grotto and had a glance at the oceanic dream
world and the future. The excitement of the “living
Diorama” was increased by the new experience of a
simulated ocean bed. The grottos had connotations of
106
Cross section of the
saltwater aquarium at
the 1900 Paris World’s
Fair, constructed by
A. and H. Guillaume
Previous page:
Salon aquarium
108
coral reefs, which are in fact not much more than a The All-around
huge accumulation of dead animal bodies. aquarium at the
World Exposition
In this field the French were the leading nation. in Paris, 1867
The new concept of big aquariums with several grot-
tos was first realized in 1866 on the Boulevard Mont-
martre in Paris and one year later at the Champ de
Mars for the World Exposition. The special attrac-
tion at these expositions was a room with a ceiling
made completely of glass, allowing the audience to
look straight up and observe the activities in the basin
above, as if they were at the bottom of the ocean.
This was, at least, the idea. In reality, the experience
must have been less impressive. When Jules Verne’s
fantasies about the submarine world were supposed
to become reality at the third World Exposition in
Paris in 1878, the Berlin councilman Dr. Ernst Frie-
del commented that the structure seemed “artificial
and uncomfortable—you almost dislocate your neck
in this fatal position and see absolutely nothing since
the fish hate to be viewed from below.” What is more,
this “ceiling aquarium” was not covered over, which
meant that its surface could be churned up by the
wind and rain. Nearly 20,000 gallons of water above
the observers’ heads—what a risky attempt! What
109
consequences would a crack in the glass have had,
not only for the fish, but also for the visitors?
Another grotto aquarium was built in Berlin, in 1867.
It was planned as an incorporated enterprise, and its
founding committee, which consisted of the German
zoologist Alfred Brehm, two bankers, a civil servant,
an author, and a constructor, asked the citizens of Ber-
lin to buy shares worth 200,000 German thalers (the
equivalent of 150,000 dollars at the time). A two-story
aquarium was built on the centrally located Unter
den Linden/Schadowstrasse between the fire walls
of the surrounding buildings. It was a strange, eccen-
tric complex: nothing could be seen from the outside,
not even a single window; daylight only entered the
building through the roof. During the first few years,
gas lamps gave off a little light. Natural stone from
nearby mountainous regions were used to cover the
archlike grottos. In May 1869 the aquarium was offi-
cially opened in the presence of King Wilhelm I. The
newspaper Vossische Zeitung quoted his reaction:
“Although the queen had informed me of the aquar-
ium, my expectations have by far been surpassed.” The
fifty show tanks held approximately 27,000 gallons of
water. In the meantime researchers had gained expe-
rience in the artificial production of salt water. The
ready-made element entered a well-designed circula-
tion system: water was brought via centrifugal pumps
from the cistern in the cellar into the reservoir, which
was located approximately fifty feet above the ground.
From there, the water flowed through pipes, where
it was mixed with air, into the basins. The drained-
off water returned to the cistern after it had been
channeled through a pebble stone and sand filter.
The glass panels of the water basins on the first
floor looked like random breakthroughs in the rock.
A fish hatchery was set up on a staircase-like grotto
making it possible to follow the metamorphosis from
egg to young fish with the help of different brood
110
tanks. And there was more to the menagerie than Cross section
aquatic animals: birds, reptiles, and mammals were of the Berlin
aquarium, 1869
all part of the program. Brehm wanted to recreate a
trek from the desert, through the jungle, culminating
at the ocean. The Deutsche Bauzeitung commended
the grotto style:
Despite the inventive, naturalistic design of the whole,
hardly anything seems to have been searched for or
fashioned, not as artificially forced decoration; every-
thing we see appears to have grown organically, to be
self-evolved.
Retrospectively, the reporter Dorothee Goebeler
recalled in 1907 in a Berlin newspaper her memory of
the fantastic pictures on leaving the aquarium:
I did not pay attention to my steps, in my ears I heard
the quiet sound of the sea, I saw the rising tide and the
foaming surf; right in front of me was an unfamiliar
world in motion, it was swimming in front of my eyes
like a kaleidoscope, the ocean shone for miles around
with electrical light, fish criss-crossed the green sea,
lobsters and octopuses moved around, and the brown
anemone waved and brought me back to the subma-
rine meadow where the sea anemones silently bloom.
111
Three illustra-
tions of the Berlin
aquarium, 1869.
The hall with the
staircase
112
duced salt water, or leasing reservoirs to neighborhood Tour of the sea
delicatessens for keeping lobsters and trout. aquarium
113
Exterior of the
New York Aquari-
um by night
114
Interior of the
New York
Aquarium
115
The strait was virtually sealed off
by erecting poles along a two-mile
stretch. During high tide the poles
were submerged below the water,
allowing the whales to swim into the
bay but trapping them after the tide
subsided. The animals were then
placed in wooden boxes that were
stuffed with algae and transported
into the city on special boats, wagons,
and trains.
In addition to permanent aquarium
Releasing the buildings, temporary constructions
whale into the
aquarium
were set up for world expositions and industrial and
national exhibitions, such as the complex aquariums
erected at the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibi-
tion in London, or the underground stone grotto
aquarium displayed at the Swiss National Exhibition
in Zurich the same year, which welcomed its visitors
with a pleasant chill and only contained fish from
Swiss lakes and rivers. The tanks were arranged next
to each other on both sides of a long room, the light
entering from above.
The running of a public aquarium was usually so
expensive that its permanent operation was in most
cases only profitable in combination with other activi-
ties. Often it had to be subsidized with typical fun-
fair attractions like magicians, jugglers, or unusual
Aquarium at the
Swiss National animals. Sometimes its location was the reason for a
Exhibition visit: an aquarium opened in 1872
in the seaside resort of Brigh-
ton, on the English south coast,
with its splendid hotels and a
new railway link to London, was
so conveniently located at the
boardwalk entrance that numer-
ous visitors could not resist the
temptation and had to have a
116
look at the 132,000-gallon main tank. The architec- The Brighton
tural design was most peculiar: London architect Aquarium with
its characteristic
Eugenius Birch, a designer of marine piers, created clock tower
a structure reminiscent of a church in Venetian-
Florentine “neo-trecento-style.” In the large entrance
hall and lining the 224-foot-long corridor were fish
tanks in archways leading up to a vaulted ceiling
supported by columns of polished red Edinburgh
granite and green serpentine marble, with pillars of
Bath stone and a mosaic flooring. Each one of the
tanks were to be found in a kind of chapel, where
the aquatic space behind the glass recalled an altar.
The underwater landscapes were made of porous tufa
to give the impression they had been transplanted
directly from the Devonshire coast. The wide corri-
dor led to a conservatory that had an attractive grotto
complete with a cascade of water. Outside, the court-
yard had five terra-cotta arches supported by pillars
enriched with carvings of mermaids, sea nymphs, and
other marine symbols. The small clock tower empha-
sizing the entrance of the structure became famous
all over the world. Although the building was far from
ready, it was decided to open on Easter Saturday 1872
117
The Stazione
Zoologica
in Naples,
around 1874
118
aquarium tanks. The scientists’ studies were located Marine research
in the upper part of the building. There were also lab- base, Woods Hole
119
Once they had learned how to handle the pressure
differences and cope with decompression sickness,
more and more scientists started to descend to the
depths of the ocean themselves. Analyzing the ani-
mals’ body structures under a microscope in the labo-
ratory was just one facet of their work. In order to
more thoroughly understand the complex ecosystem
of the ocean, it seemed wiser to do on-site research.
Indeed, the legendary argonaut researcher Jeannette
Power had foreseen the limitations of the aquarium
for scientific purposes already in the 1860s:
If one believes that it is possible to discover
interesting facts about marine animals with the help
of aquariums situated in living rooms or gardens,
in cities which are far away from the ocean, one
is mistaken.
With the possibilities of deep-sea diving and photog-
A photographer raphy (and later filming) the function of the aquarium
on the ocean bed underwent a profound change. Now that the richness
of the underwater world came
into focus, the provision-
ary nature of the aquarium
became apparent. For sci-
entists, it was now merely a
tool. However, it continued to
serve its purpose of entertain-
ing, educating, and distract-
ing the public, in short: a new
kind of theater.
120
Th e A qu a riu m a s a D re a m
121
Journey in the
Ocean, title page
122
In the empire of shells
The glowing of the ocean
The diving bell
submarine world had been terra incognita, around
which wild speculations and fantasies had been
woven. The original saltwater aquarium tamed these
thoughts and quenched the thirst for this strange
world. It compressed them into an easily compre-
hended menagerie, an oceanic garden in miniature,
a submarine chamber of wonders. The mysteries and
conundrums of the ocean were projected onto the
aquarium, fueling its dynamism and popularity. At
first, it was mainly filled with the invertebrate marine
animals—important for the theory of evolution—
but as people developed a taste for more action in
the aquarium and gained more knowledge about
owning and maintaining one, fish became more inter-
esting. Because it was easier to maintain a freshwater
aquarium, a second, “defused” type of aquarium
emerged.
Fads come and fads go, but ultimately the aquarium
stayed. This development was not a continuous pro-
cess, though. Many did not know how to solve the
technical problems, and the frequent changing of the
water became an annoyance. Early on in its develop-
ment, the hobby was largely given up and aquariums
vanished from living rooms.
But thanks to a number of dedicated aquarists in
the United States and Germany, things changed and
with the establishment of societies and the publish-
ing of magazines, the privately practiced aquarium
hobby developed its strongest dynamism. To the same
extent as the aquarium spread and became popular,
a small democratization of the knowledge of nature
occurred. The aquarium became one of the most
popular scientific tools but required not the slight-
est mathematical knowledge, distinguishing it from
physics and astronomy. Although afflicted with some
innate complications, the “ocean in a glass” came at
just the right time to suffice an ever-increasing lay-
man’s interest in nature.
126
In the course of its development the aquarium
performed an astonishing functional evolution: while
still utilized as a scientific instrument for the likes
of Robert Warington and pioneers (“proto aquar-
ists”) such as Jeannette Power, Philip Henry Gosse
also used the aquarium for religious purposes; later,
after its arrival in Germany and the United States,
the aquarium became the primary medium for natu-
ral science education; soon it turned into a matter
for slipper-wearing hobby scientists, who very quickly
started passionate competitions to see who had the
most beautiful and rare fish. The aquarium developed
into a peculiar mix of business and popular science,
but even before the turn of the century it was clear
that its educational aspect was not nearly as popular
as the sheer joy and gained by owning exotic toy fish.
Parallel to this, the freshwater aquarium broke away
from the far-reaching associations of the submarine
world. In a sense, things came full circle: the popu-
larity and proliferation of the goldfish was a result
of early expeditions, leading to the invention of
aquariums for scientific purposes; as the aquarium
itself gained esteem the world over, ships once again
set sail, now in pursuit of exotic species under the
auspices of aesthetics rather than science.
During the aquarium’s transitional period from
private to public, its dimensions changed dramati-
cally, thus enabling completely new staging and
dramaturgy. The aquarium turned into a collective
experience, comparable to those at funfairs, national
exhibitions, and museums.
But everything could have been different. The jour-
nals of the late-nineteenth century—forerunners of
today’s aquarist magazines—published in London,
Paris, New York, Washington, Boston, and Berlin,
overflowed with “ground-breaking” inventions. At
second glance the “ocean on the table” did not really
seem to be any less of a paradox than the “foldable
127
birdcage,” “the electric walking-stick,” or
“the flying ship.” But because it suited the
period so well and was nourished by so
many different factors—financial inter-
ests, a booming fascination with natural An electric
science, oceans, and collecting, and the formation of walking stick,
manufactured
societies—this aquarium did not land in the attic like by the Viennese
so many of its contemporaries. Within a short period company Elektro-
technischen
of time, it became the topic par excellence, effectively
Bureau. The bulb
picked up as a central theme in different discourses, at the end of the
and was legitimized. It did not, therefore, take long stick is protected
against damage
for it to become the most natural thing on earth. The
by a strong
wonders of the ocean and ponds were simply turned glass knob
into pets.
When writing about the history of the aquarium,
one should not forget the ecological repercussions
closely connected to the catching of marine animals.
Some pioneers suppressed the consequences of their
activities, while to this day there are marine-life advo-
cates speaking against the practice of capturing and
showcasing aquatic plants and animals for entertain-
ment or experiment.
Along the coastline, as Gosse described in his
books, the hunt for plants and animals caused real
devastation, and by the beginning of the twentieth
century the coastal landscape had completely
changed. In his book Seven Tenths, James Hamilton-
Paterson explicitly holds “zoology with strong reli-
gious tendencies” responsible for this development.
In 1907 Gosse’s son Edmund—in contrast to Philip,
a convinced Darwinist—put matters straight in his
biography of his father:
The ring of living beauty drawn about our shores was a
very thin and fragile one. It had existed all those cen-
turies solely in consequence of the indifference, the
blissful ignorance of man. These rock-basins, fringed
by corallines, filled with still water almost as pellu-
cid as the upper air itself, thronged with beautiful
128
sensitive forms of life,—they exist no longer, they are
all profaned, and emptied, and vulgarised. An army of
“collectors” has passed over them, and ravaged every
corner of them. The fairy paradise has been violated,
the exquisite product of centuries of natural selection
has been crushed under the rough paw of well-
meaning, idle-minded curiosity. That my father, him-
self so reverent, so conservative, had by the popular-
ity of his books acquired the direct responsibility for a
calamity that he had never anticipated, became clear
enough to himself before many years had passed, and
cost him great chagrin.
Despite all efforts the saltwater aquarium remained
a game of naturalness against artificiality, a material-
ized but unavoidably incomplete dream of the ocean.
It also functioned as a souvenir from a period before
the ocean became exposed to the exploitation of
humans. Its innate idea, going back to Gosse’s mari-
time “Noah’s Ark,” already included the imminent
danger of the destruction of the ocean 150 years ago
when The Aquarium was published. At the same time,
the inhabitants of the aquarium are manifestations of
a dream of overcoming time, since fish, jellyfish, and
other marine creatures have existed for millions of
years and hardly changed.
In contrast to the majority of toy fish for fresh-water
aquariums, marine animals (despite considerable
improvements in the supply of plankton) are still very
difficult to breed. Most of them are caught without
consideration and sometimes with the use of toxic
chemicals such as cyanide. The complicated ecosys-
tem of the coral reefs is simply paid no mind. More
than half of the fish are already dead before they are
even loaded onto a cargo plane to Europe, the United
States, or Japan. In spite of all the warnings, the trade
with imported fish from the Philippines, Indonesia,
Sri Lanka, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands is still boom-
ing. Different institutions give varying figures: today,
129
fish are the second most popular pets in the United
States (after cats, but before dogs). The catching of
colorful, tropical saltwater fish is a lucrative business.
In 2000, two-and-a-half pounds of aquarium fish
from the Maldives were worth five hundred dollars,
the same amount of food fish only six. According to a
global UN study from 2003, more than twenty million
tropical fish are caught per year for trade purposes
in Europe and the United States, aside from up to
twelve million corals. Some marine-water aquarists
have mixed feelings when it comes to nature conser-
vation: on the one hand they complain and condemn
environmental damage or losses, but on the other
hand they often tend to forget about the negative
consequences of their hobby.
The desire to collect and create a miniature world
remains still today. But the preconditions are differ-
ent now, and not only due to awareness of ecological
consequences. The understanding of what the highly
complex ecosystem really is has changed; it is no lon-
ger characterized by the naïveté of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Passionate aquarists today try to determine which
organizing principle a collection responds to, why
exactly certain objects belong to one collection and not
others. Maybe one day the carefully arranged minia-
ture parlors, snow globes, and living room aquariums
in which a peaceful and intact world is simulated, will
vanish. Until then, the Bonsai oceans and lakes live
their life as a naïve-ironical accessory in an apartment
decorated with lava lamps and hardoy chairs.
Aquarium, Aquarius: a new era has begun. Be it in
Monterey, Bournemouth, Okinawa, Sydney, Genoa,
or Barcelona—today ultra-modern oceanariums set
the tone and show the way to a more authentic, “real-
life” view of marine animals. Nevertheless, the con-
struction of “nature” in an artificial framework is still
afflicted with distinctive contradictions arising from
the interaction of economic interests, preservation,
130
and educational demands, as Susan Davis has im-
pressively analyzed in her book Spectacular Nature:
Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience. Irre-
spective of this, the oceanariums of the twenty-first
century continue the legacy of the aquarium. The
oceanariums are the extreme, radicalized form of the
good old aquarium, where thoughts unfold of a new
utopian ideal.
The beginning of these big aquaristic submarine
gardens, the oceanariums, can be traced back to a
facility built in 1937 at Marineland, in St. Augustine,
Florida. It was originally designed only for making
underwater films, but soon the marine mammals
displayed in a gigantic tank surrounded by aquari-
ums attracted many visitors. Today, the difference
between aquariums and oceanariums can best be
studied in Lisbon, Portugal, where the Aquário Vasco
da Gama, which opened in 1898, is located. One look
is enough to tell that the small building has seen bet-
ter days. Inside it is narrow and sticky, and everybody
who is not completely indifferent must feel pity for
the large ocean turtles that vegetate here on a few
plates of concrete. The selling of “take-away” fish
makes the place even more pathetic. The situation
in the Oceanário, located several miles east on the
site of the 1998 World Exhibition, is completely dif-
ferent. The inventive building in the shape of a cube
is located directly on the banks of the River Tejo
and does not only contain a gigantic tank that can
be seen from different sides and multiple levels, but
also enables visitors to experience the climate, ani-
mal kingdom, and vegetation of different regions in
four different zones. Young and old stroll through the
silent halls separated from sharks and rays by only a
thin glass wall. Here, one gets the impression that
the marine animals are also observing the humans.
It is the perfect place to remember the British artist
and naturalist Henry Noel Humphreys’s prophetic
131
words about the aquarium in Ocean Gardens, pub-
lished in 1857:
In its present form, it is only a ornamental; but the
time will come when we shall have immense crystal-
walled seas, covering acres of ground, like the crystal
palaces of the present, in which the whale, the shark,
and other titans of the deep, will disport themselves
with their natural enemies, for the amusement and
edification of man.
Which utopia will follow the oceanarium? Maybe
in the not too distant future humans will decide to
move into the ocean. Often enough, they have spun
dreams about it and even created architectural plans
for submarine palaces. If this were to happen, the last
phase of the aquarium’s design history would bring
about a complete reversal of the relationship between
humans and the ocean: no longer would the swimming
pool be the only aquarium for humans, but the ocean
itself would perform this role. Until such a day arrives,
we’ll have to make do with our provisional ocean
at home.
132
A ppe n dix
Acknowle dg ments
133
E. Honegger from Zurich, who very kindly put me in
contact with Paul van den Sande from the European
Union of Aquarium Curators in Antwerp.
I also wish to thank Hans-Albert Pederzani, who
introduced me to Werner Rieck. Werner Rieck, a
self-confessed aquarist and herpetologist, allowed me
to use the library of the Triton society and supplied
me with the otherwise unobtainable but marvelous
book on fish transport by Paul Nitsche. I am grate-
ful to Claude Arnal from Juillac/France, who pro-
vided information on Jeannette Power de Villepreux
and patiently answered all of my questions; Peter R.
Gilder from Arts and Designs of Japan in San Fran-
cisco, who provided the Japanese illustration on page
22; and Lee Finley, who sent me a copy of the first
American book on aquaria. I would like to express my
thanks to Frank Eyssen and Stephan Gollasch from
the Hamburg Ozeanhaus project, Anna Bernhard,
Ann Thwaite, Emma C. Spary, Rebecca Stott, Albert
Klee, David C. Allen, Harro Strehlow, Michael Tolks-
dorf, Daphne G. Fautin, Sabine Hackethal, Ursula
Harter, and James Hamilton-Paterson.
And many thanks to my friends Detlef Feussner,
Beate Heine, Ana Tipa, and Ulrich Meyer with whom
I discussed this project, and to Annette Kaiser, who
helped me solve technical problems. Last but not
least, to Ashley Marc Slapp for translating this book
into English.
134
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140
A Selection of Aquariums and Oceanariums
North America:
Albuquerque, NM: Albuquerque Aquarium,
www.cabq.gov/biopark/aquarium
Baltimore, MD: National Aquarium in Baltimore, www.aqua.org
Boston, MA: New England Aquarium, www.neaq.org
Camden, NJ: New Jersey State Aquarium, www.njaquarium.org
Chattanooga, TN: Tennessee Aquarium, www.tennis.org
Chicago, IL: Shedd Aquarium, Chicago, www.sheddaquarium.org
Corpus Christi, TX: Texas State Aquarium,
www.texasstateaquarium.org
Dallas, TX: The Dallas World Aquarium,
www.dwazoo.com/aquarium.html
Honolulu, HI: Waikiki Aquarium, University of Hawaii-Manoa,
www.waquarium.otted.hawaii.edu
Key West, FL: Key West Aquarium, www.keywestaquarium.com
La Jolla, CA: Birch Aquarium, http://aquarium.ucsd.edu
Long Beach, CA: Aquarium of the Pacific,
www.aquariumofpacific.org
Los Angeles, CA: Cabrillo Marine Aquarium,
www.cabrilloaq.org
Monterey, CA: Monterey Bay Aquarium, www.mbayaq.org
Myrtle Beach, SC: Ripley‘s Aquarium, www.ripleysaquarium.com
Newport, Kentucky: Newport Aquarium,
www.newportaquarium.com
San Francisco, CA: Steinhart Aquarium,
www.calacademy.org/aquarium
Seattle, WA: Seattle Aquarium, www.seattleaquarium.org
Vancouver, British Columbia: Aquarium Marine Science Center,
www.vanaqua.org
Europe
Barcelona, Spain: L‘Aqùarium de Barcelona,
www.aquariumbcn.com/
Berlin, Germany: Aquarium, www.aquarium-berlin.de
Bologne-sur-Mer, France: Nausicaä, Centre National de la Mer,
www.nausicaa.fr
Bournemouth, United Kingdom: The Bournemouth Aquarium,
www.oceanarium.co.uk
Brest, France: Oceanopolis, www.oceanopolis.com/
Genoa, Italy: Acquario di Genova, www.acquario.ge.it
Hamburg, Germany: Ozeanarium (planned), www.ozean.tv
Hull, United Kingdom: The Deep (Submarium),
www.thedeep.co.uk
La Rochelle, France: Aquarium de La Rochelle,
www.aquarium-larochelle.com
Lisbon, Portugal: Oceanário de Lisboa, www.oceanario.pt
London, United Kingdom: London Aquarium,
www.londonaquarium.co.uk
141
Naples, Italy: Acquario, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn,
www.szn.it
Plymouth, United Kingdom: National Marine Aquarium,
www.national-aquarium.co.uk
Stockholm, Sweden: Aquaria Vattenmuseum, www.aquaria.se
Stralsund, Germany: Aquarium Deutsches Meeresmuseum,
www.meeresmuseum.de
Tromsø, Norway: Polaria,
www.polaria.no/main/polaria_engelsk/default.htm
Valencia, Spain: L‘Oceanographic
Asia:
Enoshima, Japan: Enoshima Aquarium, www.enosui.com
Kagoshima City, Japan: Kagoshima City Aquarium
Osaka, Japan: Aquarium Kaiyukan, www.kaiyukan.com/eng
Okinawa, Japan: Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium
South Africa:
Cape Town: Two Oceans Aquarium, www.aquarium.co.za
142
About the Author
143