BIOGRAPHICAL (1825-1854) 17 



to publish his work, but they were unavaihng, 

 and after some troublesome appeals from the Ad- 

 miralty to the Treasury, and a request from Huxley 

 to be permitted to remain on half -pay until the com- 

 pletion of the publication, he was ordered to join 

 his ship immediately, or be struck off the navy list. 

 This actually happened in March 1854, with the 

 curious result that the Royal Society — Huxley no 

 longer being in a Government department — assigned 

 £300 towards the publication of his researches for 

 this purpose, the remainder being undertaken by 

 the Ray Society. 



At this time Huxley was endeavouring to find 

 some means to a livelihood which would allow him 

 to marry, and both he and Tyndall apphed for the 

 Chair of Zoology at the University of Toronto. 

 Neither of them, however, got it. At home, Aber- 

 deen, Cork, and King's College, London, were all 

 tried in vain. And there can be no doubt that his 

 misfortune in these apphcations depressed him very 

 much for a time, particularly when he thought of 

 his future wife. As alternatives to science, he thought 

 of practising medicine in Sydney, settling upon the 

 land in Australia, or even keeping a store, yet know- 

 ing full well all the time that the pursuit of science 

 for its own sake offered him the only possible intel- 

 lectual happiness. 



It must be remembered that it took from four to 

 six months for a letter to reach Australia in those 

 days, and one can easily understand how very keenly 

 Huxley must have felt his position. Amidst all 

 these disappointments, too, came the death of his 

 mother in 1852, his father also being seriously ill. 

 No wonder he \rrote, " Belief and happiness seem 



B 



