Course of Voyage 21 



was south to the strait between Tasmania and Aus- 

 tralic, then back to Sydney ; then again along the 

 Barrier Reef right up to the Torres Straits. After 

 work there, it returned again to Sydney, and then set 

 out for the Louisiade Archipelago, which stretches 

 through the coral sea south-eastwartl from New Guinea; 

 then again to the Australian shores of the Torres 

 Straits, and finally arrived in Sydney in March, 1850, 

 where the Captain suddenly died, and the ship was 

 ordered to return to England. 



Throughout the voyage MacGillivray and Huxlej^ 

 busied themselves with collecting animals on sea and on 

 shore. MacGillivray seems to have taken for his share 

 of the spoil chiefly such animals as provided shells or 

 skins or skeletons suitable for handing over to museums. 

 Huxley occupied himself incessantly with dissecting 

 tools and with the micro.scope, with results to be de- 

 scribed in a later chapter. The better-equipped expe- 

 ditions of modern times were provided with elaborate 

 appliances for bringing up samples of living creatures 

 from all depths of the floor of the ocean, and with com- 

 plicated towing nets for securing the floating creatures 

 of the surface of the seas. The Rattlesjiake naturalists 

 had to content themselves with simple apparatus de- 

 vised by themselves. At an early period of the voyage 

 attempts were made to take deep soundings, but no 

 bottom was reached at a depth of two thousand four 

 hundred fathoms, and their later work was confined to 

 surface animals or to inshore dredging in shallow 

 waters. They began near Rio. 



" None of the ship's boats could be spared, so I [MacGillivray] 

 hired one pulled by four negro slaves who, although strong, 

 active fellows, had great objections to straining their backs at 

 the oar, when the dredge was down. No sieve having been 



