434 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLET 



must be added a share in the supervision of the staff of 

 officers, of the library and correspondence, and the details 

 of house-keeping. 



The appointment was well-timed in the interest of the 

 Society, for the experience he had obtained as an officer in 

 the Surveying Expedition of Captain Stanley rendered 

 his co-operation and advice of the greatest value in the 

 efforts which the Society had recently commenced to 

 induce the Government, through the Admiralty especially, 

 to undertake the physical and biological exploration of 

 the ocean. It was but a few months before his appoint- 

 ment that he had been placed upon a committee of the 

 Society, through which H.M.S. Porcupine was employed 

 for this purpose in the Eui'opean seas, and negotiations 

 had already been commenced with the Admiralty for a 

 voyage of circumnavigation with the same objects, which 

 eventuated in the Challenger Expedition. 



In the first year of his appointment, the equipment of the 

 Challenger, and selection of its officers, was entrusted to the 

 Koyal Society, and in the preparation of the instructions to 

 the naturalists Mr. Huxley had a dominating responsibility. 

 In the same year a correspondence commenced with the 

 India Office on the subject of deep-sea dredging in the 

 Indian Ocean (it came to nothing), and another with the 

 Eoyal Geographical Society on that of a North Polar 

 Expedition, which resulted in the Nares Expedition 

 (1875). In 1873, another with the Admiralty on the 

 advisability of appointing naturalists to accompany two 

 of the expeditions about to be despatched for observing 

 the transit of Venus across the sun's disk in Mauritius 

 and Kerguelen, which resulted in three naturalists being 

 appointed. Arduous as was the correspondence devolving 

 on the Biological Secretary, through the instructing and 

 instalment of these two expeditions, it was as nothing 

 compared with the official, demi-official, and private, with 

 the Government and individuals, that arose from the 

 Governiuent request that the Royal Society should arrange 



