THE TROPICAL PACIFIC 349 



within reasonable limits, Agassiz was forced to devote 

 himself almost entirely to its main object, the examina- 

 tion of coral islands, greatly to curtail the pelagic tow- 

 ing, and to abandon most of the dredging. 



Nearly all naturalists who have worked with govern- 

 ment vessels have suffered from red tape and prejudice, an 

 annoyance so well described by Huxley in the few pub- 

 lished fragments of his journal of the voyage of the Rat- 

 tlesnake. Agassiz seems on this expedition to have chafed 

 more from such vexations than on any other occasion. 



" I continue to be more and more disgusted," he says, 

 " at the navy red tape ; it is so idiotic on a trip like this 

 to attempt to put on man-of-war style. The natural re- 

 sult is that by the time an order gets carried out it has 

 either lost its value, or might as well not have been 

 given ! The other day the chief officer was coming back 

 in a sail boat, and it took fully ten minutes before the 

 officer of the deck, who was below, got it into his head 

 that anybody was waiting for him to give the quarter- 

 master the order to heave a line and keep the boat from 

 drifting to sea again. Yet there was the Captain, the 

 crew, and the officers all looking on and seeing the 

 boat fall off. I could not stand it and chucked him a 

 line, but it seems it was a gross piece of violation of eti- 

 quette. I am sure that in a pinch a man would drown 

 before the right person got the order to save him ! 

 When I am off in a boat with the younger officers, I al- 

 ways assume that they know nothing about a boat, and 

 they don't, and we get on famously." 



On hoard the Albatross, August 30, 1899 : " One 

 week to-night since we left Sausalito. We are just about 



