1846 PROSPECTS OF THE VOYAGE 37 



with scientific pursuits a circumstance you would appre- 

 ciate as highly as I do if you were as well acquainted as 

 I now am with the ordinary opportunities of an assistant 

 surgeon. Furthermore, I am given to understand that if 

 one does anything at all, promotion is almost certain. 

 So that altogether I am in a very fair way, and would 

 snap my fingers at the Grand Turk. Wharton Jones was 

 delighted when I told him about my appointment. Dim 

 visions of strangely formed corpuscles seemed to cross his 

 imagination like the ghosts of the kings in Macbeth. 



What seems his head 

 The likeness of a nucleated cell has on. 



The law's delays are proverbial, but on this 

 occasion, as on the return of the Rattlesnake, the 

 Admiralty seem to have been almost as provoking to 

 the eager young surgeon as any lawyer could have 

 been. The appointment was promised in May; it 

 was not made till October. On the 6th of that month 

 there is another letter to his sister, giving fuller 

 particulars of his prospects on the voyage : 



MY DEAREST LIZZIE At last I have really got my 

 appointment and joined my ship. I was so completely 

 disgusted with the many delays that had occurred, that I 

 made up my mind not to write to anybody again until I 

 had my commission in my hand. Henceforward, like 

 another Jonah, my dwelling-place will be the "inwards " 

 of the Rattlesnake, and upon the whole I really doubt 

 whether Jonah was much worse accommodated, so far as 

 room goes, than myself. My total length, as you are aware, 

 is considerable, 5 feet 1 1 inches, possibly, but the height 

 of the lower deck of the Rattlesnake, which will be my 

 especial location, is at the outside 4 feet 10 inches. 

 What I am to do with the superfluous foot I cannot 



