Royal Society Medals 33 



long time it seemed as if he was not even to gain repu- 

 tation by the discoveries he knew himself to be making. 

 He writes in his autobiography : 



"During the four years of our absence, I sent home commun- 

 ication after communication to the ' Linnaean ' Society, with 

 the same result as that obtained by Noah when he sent the 

 raven out of his ark. Tired at last of hearing nothing about 

 them, I determined to do or die, and in 1849 I drew up a more 

 elaborate paper and forwarded it to the Royal Society. This 

 was my dove, if I had only known it ; but owing to the move- 

 ments of the ship I heard nothing of that either until ni}- re- 

 turn to England in the latter end of the year 1850, when I 

 found that it was printed and published, and that a huge packet 

 of separate copies awaited me. When I hear some of my 

 young friends complain of want of sympathy and encourage- 

 ment, I am inclined to think that my naval life was not the 

 least valuable part of my education." 



This first sticcessful paper was a memoir On the Anat- 

 omy and the Affinities of the Family of Mediisce, and was 

 sent at Captain Stanley's suggestion to that officer's 

 father, the Bishop of Norwich, who communicated it to 

 the Royal Society. It is a curious circumstance that 

 Huxley, who afterwards met with so virulent oppos- 

 ition from bishops, owed his first public success to 

 one of them. Professor Sir Michael Foster writes of 

 this period in Huxley's life : 



"The career of many a successful man hasehewn that obsta- 

 cles often prove the mother of endeavour, and never was this 

 lesson clearer than in the case of Huxle3^ Working amidst a 

 host of ditfi cutties, in want of room, in want of light, seeking 

 to unravel the intricacies of minute structure with a microscope 

 lashed to secure steadiness, cramped within a tiny cabin, jos- 

 tled by the tumult of a crowded ship's life, with the scantiest 

 supply of books of reference, with no one at hand of whom he 

 could take counsel on the problems opening up before him, he 

 gathered for himself during these four years a large mass of 



