8 



FIFTY YEARS OF MUSEUM WOEK 



with the current. Also while at Shanghai, the French Admiral, on a trip 

 up the river to the scene of conflict, was shot by the rebels, and the 

 salutes fired by various warships on the day of the funeral suggested a 

 second Fourth of July. 



There w r ere other interesting episodes ! One day the boiler of a river 

 steamer blew up on her trial trip, with great damage to the vessel and 

 the loss of many lives, and on another occasion a passenger steamer 

 caught fire and drifted blazing through the fleet of ships at anchor, the 

 most exciting moment being when she came alongside the frigate "Im- 

 perieuse" which was engaged in taking in a supply of powder. All of 

 which was great "fun" for a ten-year-old boy whose father fortunately 

 remembered that he too had been a boy once and took his son with him 

 to these scenes of disaster. 



My second long voyage was of far greater importance as its termina- 

 tion coincided with the return of the mining engineer whose acquaint- 

 ance with Professor Ward was the determinant factor in my career. 

 This voyage occupied eighteen months in 1869-70 and took me from 

 Boston to Valparaiso, Callao, the Chincha Islands, where we spent three 

 months, to London and back to Boston. Some of the happenings on 

 this voyage are noted in the article, "The Chincha Islands Fifty Years 

 Ago." 1 The ship's carpenter allowed me the use of tools and in his shop 

 I skinned birds and imparted to him the rudiments of taxidermy. The 

 knowledge of knots and ropes and purchases and how to handle heavy 

 objects has more than once been most valuable. Furthermore I learned 

 the importance of being on time under conditions where, on occasion, 

 punctuality might be enforced by a bucket of cold water or by the 

 stimulating application of a rope's end. 



The close of my last voyage, November, 1870, found me eighteen 

 years old and confronted with the difficult and more or less unpleasant 

 problem of deciding what to do for a living. And now came into plav 

 those apparently fortuitous circumstances previously hinted at. As 

 these events did not happen consecutively they cannot be recorded in 

 orderly sequence, but simply are set down as so many items from which 

 the reader can make his own combination. 



We speak of the choice of a profession but really in most cases our 

 occupations are chosen for us by circumstances quite beyond our control, 



vZ::r^ oi no importaace ° r as - *■* ^ « ^ 



i"The Chincha Islands Fiftv Years Aim " tj 

 Reprinted m Bird Islands of Peru by Robert Cushnmr i Murphv.'lg™, Q " arterl> ' 1021 ' voK S ' pp - 1H) ' 



