JO LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, iv 



(vol. v.), in which, under the title of " Science at Sea," Hux- 

 ley reviewed the Voyage of the Rattlesnake by MacGillivray, 

 the naturalist to the expedition, which had recently ap- 

 peared. This book gave very few descriptions of the inci- 

 dents and life on board, and so drew in many ways a col- 

 ourless picture of the expedition. This defect the reviewer 

 sought to remedy by giving extracts from the so-called 

 " unpublished correspondence " of one of the officers — 

 sketches apparently written for the occasion — as well as 

 from an equally unpublished but more real journal kept by 

 the same hand. 



The description of the ship herself, of her inadequate 

 equipment for the special purposes she was to carry out, of 

 the officers' quiet contempt of scientific pursuits, which not 

 even the captain's influence was able to subdue, of the 

 illusory promises of help and advancement held out by the 

 Admiralty to young investigators, makes a striking foil to 

 the spirit in which the Government of thirty years later 

 undertook a greater scientific expedition. Perhaps some 

 vivid recollections of this voyage did something to better the 

 conditions under which the later investigators worked. 



Thus, p. lOo: 



In the year 1846, Captain Owen Stanley, a young and zeal- 

 ous officer, of good report for his capabilities as a scientific 

 surveyor, was entrusted with the command of the Rattlesnake, 

 a vessel of six-and-twenty guns", strong and seaworthy, but one 

 of that class unenviably distinguished in the war-time as a 

 " donkey-frigate." To the laity it would seem that a ship jour- 

 neying to unknown regions, when the lives of a couple of hun- 

 dred men may, at any moment, depend upon her handiness in 

 going about, so as to avoid any suddenly discovered danger, 

 should possess the best possible sailing powers. The Admiralty, 

 however, makes its selection upon other principles, and explor- 

 ing vessels will be invariably found to be the slowest, clumsiest, 

 and in every respect the most inconvenient ships which wear 

 the pennant. In accordance with the rule, such was the Rattle- 

 snake; and to carry out the spirit of the authorities more com- 

 pletely, she was turned out of Portsmouth dockyard in such a 

 disgraceful state of unfitness, that her lower deck was con- 

 tinually under water during the voyage. 



