38 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. II 



divine. Happily, however, there is a sort of skylight 

 into the berth, so that I shall be able to sit with the body 

 in it and my head out. 



Apart from joking, however, this is not such a great 

 matter, and it is the only thing I would see altered in the 

 whole affair. The officers, as far as I have seen them, are 

 a very gentlemanly, excellent set of men, and considering 

 we are to be together for four or five years, that is a 

 matter of no small importance. I am not given to be 

 sanguine, but I confess I expect a good deal to arise out 

 of this appointment. In the first place, surveying ships 

 are totally different from the ordinary run of men-of-war. 

 The requisite discipline is kept up, but not in the martinet 

 style. Less form is observed. From the men who are 

 appointed having more or less scientific turns, they have 

 more respect for one another than that given by mere 

 position in the service, and hence that position is less 

 taken advantage of. They are brought more into contact, 

 and hence those engaged in the surveying service almost 

 proverbially stick by one another. To me, whose interest 

 in the service is almost all to be made, this is a matter of 

 no small importance. 



Then again, in a surveying ship you can work. In an 

 ordinary frigate, if a fellow has the talents of all the 

 scientific men from Archimedes downwards compressed 

 into his own peculiar skull, they are all lost. Even if it 

 were possible to study in a midshipman's berth, you have 

 not room in your " chat " for more than a dozen books. 

 But in the Rattlesnake the whole poop is to be converted 

 into a large chart-room with bookshelves and tables and 

 plenty of light. There I may read, draw, or microscopise 

 at pleasure, and as to books, I have a carte blanche from 

 the Captain to take as many as I please, of which per- 

 mission we shall avail ourself rather and besides all 

 this, from the peculiar way in which I obtained this 

 appointment, I shall have a much wider swing than assistant 

 surgeons in general get I can see clearly that certain 



