260 siege of the south pole 
the ships, and which you are to endeavour to preserve, 
as far as may be done without inconvenience.” 
In addition to the Admiralty instructions, the Royal 
Society prepared, through a series of committees, in- 
structions for scientific observations to be made on ter- 
restrial magnetism, geodesy, tides, meteorology, oceanic 
depths and temperature, astronomical phenomena, 
geology, zoology, and botany, the whole forming a vol- 
ume of a hundred pages. It must be borne in mind that 
all that was enjoined was the collection of observations 
and of specimens to be dealt with at home after the 
return of the expedition; and that the various sciences 
were still in such an unspecialised state in 1839 that the 
acute observations of intelligent amateurs in the leisure 
afforded them by their official duties were capable of 
yielding results of very great value. This has long 
ceased to be the case, and the absence of a staff of trained 
scientific specialists from an expedition of exploration 
would now r be as gross an absurdity as the absence of a 
skilled engineer, or electrician, or torpedo officer, from 
a ship of war on active service. In 1839, life in the navy 
and in the laboratory was a simpler affair than it now is, 
and it was as possible then for a naval officer of scien- 
tific tastes to conduct a scientific expedition with all the 
completeness desirable as it is now for a scientific man 
with a taste for the sea to navigate his own yacht. The 
surgeons, it must also be remembered, were men of scien- 
tific training, and amongst them there was one who 
speedily showed himself worthy to rank with Charles 
Darwin, who had recently completed his circumnaviga- 
tion on H. M. S. Beagle, and with T. H. Huxley who, a 
few years later, pursued his researches off the Australian 
coast in the cramped quarters of H; M. S._ Rattlesnake. 
