264 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY ghap. xvii 



read it, but I find myself utterly at a loss to comprehend his 

 point of view.— Ever yours faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



The following letter is interesting, as showing his con- 

 tinued interest in the question of skull structure, as well as 

 his relation to his friend and fellow-worker, Dr. W. K. 

 Parker. 



Jermyn Street, March 18, 1863. 



My dear Parker — Any conclusion that I have reached will 

 seem to me all the better based for knowing that you have been 

 near or at it, and I am therefore right glad to have your letter. 

 If I had only time, nothing would delight me more than to go 

 over your preparations, but these Hunterian Lectures are about 

 the hardest bit of work I ever took in hand, and I am obliged to 

 give every minute to them. 



By and by I will gladly go with you over your vast material. 



Did you not some time ago tell me that you considered the 

 Y-shaped bone (so-called presphenoid) in the Pike to be the 

 true basisphenoid ? If so, let me know before lecture to-morrow, 

 that I may not commit theft unawares. 



I have arrived at that conclusion myself from the anatomical 

 relations of the bone in question to the brain and nerves. 



I look upon the proposition opisthotis = turtle's " occipital 

 externe " = Perch's Rocher (Cuvier) as the one thing needful 

 to clear up the unity of structure of the bony cranium; and it 

 shall be counted unto me as a great sin if I have helped to keep 

 you back from it. The thing has been dawning upon me ever 

 since I read Kolliker's book two summers ago, but I have never 

 had time to work it out. — Ever yours faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



The following extracts from a letter to Hooker and a 

 letter to Darwin describe the pressure of his work at this 

 time. 



1863. 



My dear Hooker — ... I would willingly send a paper to 

 the Linnaean this year if I could, but I do not see how it is 

 practicable. I lecture five times a week from now till the middle 

 of February. I then have to give eighteen lectures at the Coll. 

 Surgeons — six on classification, and twelve on the vertebrate 

 skeleton. I must write a paper on this new Glyptodon, with 

 some eighteen to twenty plates. A preliminary notice has 

 already gone to the Royal Society. I have a decade of fossil 



