478 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY 



their bearings on the history and progress of contemporary in- 

 vestigation, but these are of a detailed and wholly technical 

 order. 



APPENDIX II 



His administrative work as an officer of the Royal 

 Society is described in the following note by Sir Joseph 

 Hooker : — 



Mr. Huxley was appointed Joint-Secretary of the Royal 

 Society, November 30, 1871, in succession to Dr. Sharpey, Sir 

 George Airy being President, and Professor (now Sir George) 

 Stokes, Senior Secretary. He held the office till November 30, 

 1880. The duties of the office are manifold and heavy; they 

 include attendance at all the meetings of the Fellows, and of 

 the councils, committees, and sub-committees of the Society, 

 and especially the supervision of the printing and illustrating 

 all papers on biological subjects that are published in the So- 

 ciety's Transactions and Proceedings : the latter often involving 

 a protracted correspondence with the authors. To this must be 

 added a share in the supervision of the staff of officers, of the 

 library and correspondence, and the details of house-keeping. 



The appointment was well-timed in the interest of the So- 

 ciety, for the experience he had obtained as an officer in the Sur- 

 veying Expedition of Captain Stanley rendered his co-operation 

 and advice of the greatest value in the efforts which the Society 

 had recently commenced to induce the Government, through 

 the Admiralty especially, to undertake the physical and bio- 

 logical exploration of the ocean. It was but a few months 

 before his appointment that he had been placed upon a com- 

 mittee of the Society, through which H.M.S. Porcupine was 

 employed for this purpose in the European seas, and negotiations 

 had already been commenced with the Admiralty for a voyage 

 of circumnavigation with the same objects, which eventuated 

 in the Challenger Expedition. 



In the first year of his appointment, the equipment of the 

 Challenger, and selection of its officers, was entrusted to the 

 Royal Society, and in the preparation of the instructions to the 

 naturalists Mr. Huxley had a dominating responsibility. In the 

 same year a correspondence commenced with the India Office 

 on the subject of deep-sea dredging in the Indian Ocean (it 



