EXPERIENCES AS NAVAL SURGEON 1 



obtained a living specimen of the Lancelet {Amphioxus 

 lanceolatus), for the purpose of investigating the nature 

 of its blood, on which he read a short paper at the 

 Meeting of the British Association, held that year at 

 Southampton (Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1847, Part 2, p. <^<). 

 Sci. Mem., i, 11, p. 4). 



It is interesting to notice that Charles Darwin and 

 Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, who were afterwards among 

 Huxley's most intimate friends, began, as he did, their 

 scientific work on board ship, and given suiEcient initial 

 ability, there is much to be said for some such way of 

 gaining horizon and wealth of imagination at the outset 

 of a specialist career in natural history. There is at 

 least no question that Huxley's early experiences in a 

 ship of discovery were an important factor in giving that 

 breadth of knowledge and interest by which he was so 

 eminently characterized. 



From letters of the period we learn that the young 

 naturalist looked forward to the cruise with the most 

 eager anticipation, and chafed at the delays which inter- 

 vened between the promise of the appointment and the 

 departure of the Rattlesnake. She at last left Spithead 

 on December 3, 1846, and was away for four years, of 

 which nearly three were spent in Australian waters. 

 Professor Virchow in the Huxley Lecture for 1898, 

 summarized the value of the training acquired in the 

 following admirable way : — 



" When Huxley himself left Charing Cross Hospital in 1846, 

 be had enjoyed a rich measure of instruction in anatomy and 

 physiology. Thus trained, he took the post of naval surgeon, 

 and by the time that he returned, four years later, he had become 

 a perfect zoologist and a keen-sighted ethnologist. How this 

 was possible, any one will readily understand who knows from 

 his own experience how great the value of personal observation 

 is for the development of independent and unprejudiced thought. 



