A UTOBIOGRA PHY 13 



Three years after my return were occupied by a battle 

 between my scientific friends on the one hand and the 

 Admirahy on the other, as to whether the latter ought, or 

 ought not, to act up to the spirit of a pledge they had given 

 to encourage officers who had done scientific work by con- 

 tributing to the expense of publishing mine. At last the 

 Admiralty, getting tired, I suppose, cut short the discussion 

 by ordering me to join a ship, which thing I declined to do, 

 and as Rastignac, in the Pere Goriot, says to Paris, I said to 

 London "a notis deux.'' I desired to obtain a Professor- 

 ship of either Physiology or Comparative Anatom.y, and as 

 vacancies occurred I applied, but in vain. My friend. 

 Professor Tyndall, and I were candidates at the same time, 

 he for the Chair of Physics and I for that of Natural History 

 in the University of Toronto, which, fortunately, as it turned 

 out, would not look at either of us. I say fortunately, not 

 from any lack of respect for Toronto, but because I soon 

 made up my mind that London was the place for me, and 

 hence I have steadily declined the inducements to leave it, 

 which have at various times been offered. At last, in 1854, 

 on the translation of my warm friend Edward Forbes, to 

 Edinburgh, Sir Henry De la Beche, the Director-General 

 of the Geological Survey, offered me the post Forbes vacated 

 of Paleontologist and Lecturer on Natural History. I re- 

 fused the former point blank, and accepted the latter only 

 provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils, 

 and that I should give up Natural History as soon as I could 

 get a physiological post. But I held the office for thirty- 

 one years, and a large part of my work has been paleonto- 

 logical. 



At that time I disliked public speaking, and had a firm 

 conviction that I should break down every time I opened 

 my mouth. I believe I had every fault a speaker could 



