322 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xin 



Naples to be instructed in catching and preserving 

 marine animals for the purposes of scientific research. 



With respect to question No. 2, I am afraid my 

 answer must be less hopeful So far as the British 

 Admiralty is represented by the ordinary British 

 admiral, the only reply to such a proposition as you 

 make that I should expect would be that he (the British 

 admiral, to wit) would see you d d first However, 

 I will speak of the matter to the Hydrographer, who 

 really is interested in science, at the first opportunity. 



For many years before this, and until the end of 

 his life, there was another side to his correspondence 

 which deserves mention. 



I wish that more of the queer letters, which 

 arrived in never-failing streams, had been preserved. 

 A favourite type was the anonymous letter. It 

 prayed fervently, over four pages, that the Almighty 

 would send him down quick into the pit, and was 

 usually signed simply "A Lady." Others came 

 from cranks of every species : the man who de- 

 monstrated that the world was flat, or that the 

 atmosphere had no weight an easy proof, for you 

 weigh a bottle full of air ; then break it to pieces, so 

 that it holds nothing ; weigh the pieces, and they are 

 the same weight as the whole bottle full of air ! Or, 

 again, that the optical law of equality between the 

 angle of incidence and the angle of reflection is a 

 delusion, whence it follows that all our established 

 latitudes are incorrect, and the difference of 

 temperature between Labrador and Ireland, nomin- 



