[It was during this period of waiting that he attended his first meeting of the British Association, which was held in 1846 at Southampton. Here he obtained from Professor Edward Forbes one of his living specimens of Amphioxus lanceolatus, and made an examination of its blood. The result was a short paper read at the following meeting of the Association, which showed that in the composition of its blood this lowly vertebrate approached very near the invertebrates. ("Examination of the Corpuscles of the Blood of Amphioxus lanceolatus" "British Association Report" 1847 2 page 95 and "Scientific Memoirs" 1.)
CHAPTER 1.3.
1846-1849.
[It is a curious coincidence that, like two other leaders of science, Charles Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker, their close friend Huxley began his scientific career on board one of Her Majesty's ships. He was, however, to learn how little the British Government of that day, for all its professions, really cared for the advancement of knowledge. (The key to this attitude on the part of the Admiralty is to be found in the scathing description in Briggs' "Naval Administration from 1827 to 1892" page 92, of the ruinous parsimony of either political party at this time with regard to the navy—a policy the results of which were only too apparent at the outbreak of the Crimean war. I quote a couple of sentences, "The navy estimates were framed upon the lowest scale, and reduction pushed to the very verge of danger." "Even from a financial point of view the course pursued was the reverse of economical, and ultimately led to wasteful and increased expenditure." Thus the liberal professions of the Admiralty were not fulfilled; its good will gave the young surgeon three and a half years of leave from active service; with an obdurate treasury, it could do no more.) But of the immense value to himself of these years of hard training, the discipline, the knowledge of men and of the capabilities of life, even without more than the barest necessities of existence—of this he often spoke. As he puts it in his Autobiography:—]
Life on board Her Majesty's ships in those days was a very different affair from what it is now, and ours was exceptionally rough, as we were often many months without receiving letters or seeing any civilised people but ourselves. In exchange, we had the interest of being about the last voyagers, I suppose, to whom it could be possible to meet with people who knew nothing of firearms—as we did on the south coast of New Guinea—and of making acquaintance with a variety of interesting savage and semi-civilised people. But, apart from experience of this kind and the opportunities offered for scientific work, to me, personally, the cruise was extremely valuable. It was good for me to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities of existence by living on bare necessaries: to find how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for canopy, and cocoa and weevilly biscuit the sole prospect for breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake of what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the bottom and I along with it. My brother officers were as good fellows as sailors ought to be and generally are, but, naturally, they neither knew nor cared anything about my pursuits, nor understood why I should be so zealous in pursuit of the objects which my friends, the middies, christened "Buffons," after the title conspicuous on a volume of the "Suites a Buffon," which stood on my shelf in the chart-room.
[On the whole, life among the company of officers was satisfactory enough. (The Assistant-Surgeon messed in the gun-room with the middies. A man in the midst of a lot of boys, with hardly any grown-up companions, often has a rather unenviable position; but, says Captain Heath, who was one of these middies, Huxley's constant good spirits and fun, when he was not absorbed in his work, his freedom from any assumption of superiority over them, made the boys his good comrades and allies.) Huxley's immediate superior, John Thompson, was a man of sterling worth; and Captain Stanley was an excellent commander, and sympathetic withal. Among Huxley's messmates there was only one, the ship's clerk, whoever made himself actively disagreeable, and a quarrel with him only served to bring into relief the young surgeon's integrity and directness of action. After some dispute, in which he had been worsted, this gentleman sought to avenge himself by dropping mysterious hints as to Huxley's conduct before joining the ship. He had been treasurer of his mess; there had been trouble about the accounts, and a scandal had barely been averted. This was not long in coming to Huxley's ears. Furiously indignant as he was, he did not lose his self-control; but promptly inviting the members of the wardroom to meet as a court of honour, laid his case before them, and challenged his accuser to bring forward any tittle of evidence in support of his insinuations. The latter had nothing to say for himself, and made a formal retraction and apology. A signed account of the proceedings was kept by the first officer, and a duplicate by Huxley, as a defence against any possible revival of the slander.
On December 3, 1846, the "Rattlesnake" frigate left Spithead, but touched again at Plymouth to ship 65,000 pounds sterling of specie for the Cape. This delay was no pleasure to the young Huxley; it only served to renew the pain of parting from home, so that, after writing a last letter to reassure his mother as to the comfort of his present quarters, he was glad to lose sight of the English coast on the 11th.
Madeira was reached on the 18th. On the 26th they sailed for Rio de Janeiro, where they stayed from January 23 to February 2, 1847. Here Huxley had his first experience of tropical dredging in Botafago Bay, with Macgillivray, naturalist to the expedition. It was a memorable occasion, the more so, because in the absence of a sieve they were compelled to use their hands as strainers the first day. Happily the want was afterwards supplied by a meat cover. From the following letter it seems that several prizes of value were taken in the dredge:—]
Rio de Janeiro, January 24, 1847.
My dear Mother,