CHAPTER EIGHT 



LONDON-IN HUXLEY'S LABORATORY 



I SAILED from New York on the S. S. Italy, of the long defunct 

 National Line, whose steamers were mostly slovenly and rat-ridden, 

 but they were cheap and went directly to London. The voyage was very 

 tedious, thirteen days, but not otherwise unpleasant, for we had only 

 a couple of rough days. The small group of passengers were a scrubby 

 lot, with two exceptions, an English naval officer and a young New 

 York lawyer, Julian Davies, who became very prominent at a later 

 time. Davies had had a nervous breakdown and was on his way to Egypt 

 to recuperate. We became very friendly and had lodgings together so 

 long as he remained in London, at i6 Charles Street, St. James' Square, 

 just off the Haymarket. 



The surgeon of the Italy took much interest in my somewhat nebu- 

 lous plans and gave me advice which, though well meant, almost 

 started me on an entirely wrong course. Nearly all the great vertebrate 

 palaeontologists, Clift, Owen, Huxley in England, DeKay, Wistar, 

 Harlan, Prout and Leidy in America, had all begun their careers by 



(studying medicine. Cope and Marsh had not, but they had worked at 

 French and German universities respectively. I did not intend to take 

 up a medical course, but I did suppose that my first step ought to be 

 a thorough grounding in human anatomy. The ship's surgeon thought 

 so too and advised me to enroll as a pupil with a teacher in Russell 

 Square, who devoted himself exclusively to instruction in anatomy. I 

 took this advice and waited on the anatomist and almost committed 

 myself to joining his class. 



It was a fortunate circumstance that, before definitely agreeing to 

 work with the anatomist, I called upon Professor Huxley and presented 

 Leidy 's letter of introduction. As soon as "the eminent man" (as we 

 nicknamed him in the laboratory) learned what I was dimly striving 

 for, he promptly made up my mind for me and said : "What you ought 

 and need to do, is to come here to South Kensington and take my 



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