IS 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



of St. Thomas, which we found filled with shipping driven thither, like 

 ourselves, by stress of weather, most of the vessels with broken masts or 

 otherwise seriously disabled. Not a few, as we learned later, caught in 

 this memorable storm were never again heard from, and our ship was among 

 those reported as overdue and supposed to have been lost. 



A week at St. Thomas sufficed for repairs and the taking on of fresh 

 supplies, and gave me time to gather a small general collection of natural 

 history specimens, and we were again on our way north, with fine weather 

 and full sails as far as the dreaded Cape, when we again encountered heavy 

 gales and were driven from our course. It was overcast and stormy with 

 high winds for the rest of the voyage; we hoped we still held enough westing 

 to make our port, but were in doubt, as we were again dependent on dead 

 reckoning. It was therefore a crucial time when at sunset of a boisterous 

 March day the sailors were sent aloft to shorten sail, preparatory to laying- 

 to for the night, presumably near the eastern end of Long Island, but with 

 doubt as to whether we should not be so far off our course as to render 

 necessary another long voyage to recover our lost westing. Shortly, how- 

 ever, the sailors from the topmast announced a light, and soon after a 

 second light, thus making us sure of the position of the ship and the course 

 to lay. The next morning the 'Gerhadina' was anchored in the harbor of 

 Woods Hole, and a few days later ended her ninety days' voyage from Bahia 

 to Boston. 



When I left Bahia I was rather glad that the fates had determined that 

 I was to make the voyage home in a sailing vessel, and on completing it I 

 was still glad I had had the opportunity of such a varied experience. I had 

 seen the ocean for weeks in its most amiable moods, and I had seen it again 

 for weeks in its most angry paroxysms. The trade-wind belts, the doldrums 

 with their huge, slowly rolling swells, the North Atlantic in its February 

 anger, were all precious memories. The Sargosso Sea had added specimens 

 of the surface life of the sea to my collections — minute mollusks and a varied 

 assortment of crustaceans gathered from the gulf weed — and many observa- 

 tions on sea-birds, flying-fishes, and the atmospheric phenomena of mid- 

 ocean. 



Collecting Trip to the Middle West (1867). 



During the last two months of the voyage my health naturally improved, 

 but I had suffered so long from chronic indigestion and intestinal troubles, 

 and especially during my journey in Brazil, that I finally felt it best to try 

 and abandon my ideal of a life devoted to natural history research, and 

 accordingly resigned my position at the Museum of Comparative Zoology 



