Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2

by Thomas Henry Huxley

My dear Sir,

In accordance with your wish, I very willingly put into writing the substance of the opinion as to the importance of Professor Marsh's collection of fossils which I expressed to you yesterday. As you are aware, I devoted four or five days to the examination of this collection, and was enabled by Professor Marsh's kindness to obtain a fair conception of the whole.

I am disposed to think that whether we regard the abundance of material, the number of complete skeletons of the various species, or the extent of geological time covered by the collection, which I had the good fortune to see at New Haven, there is no collection of fossil vertebrates in existence, which can be compared with it. I say this without forgetting Montmartre, Siwalik, or Pikermi—and I think that I am quite safe in adding that no collection which has been hitherto formed approaches that made by Professor Marsh, in the completeness of the chain of evidence by which certain existing mammals are connected with their older tertiary ancestry.

It is of the highest importance to the progress of Biological Science that the publication of this evidence, accompanied by illustrations of such fulness as to enable paleontologists to form their own judgment as to its value, should take place without delay.

I am yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Breaking their journey at Boston, they went from Newport to Petersham, in the highlands of Worcester County, where they were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. John Fiske, at their summer home. Among the other visitors were the eminent musical composer Mr. Paine, the poet Cranch, and daughters of Hawthorne and Longfellow, so that they found themselves in the midst of a particularly cheerful and delightful party. From Petersham they proceeded to Buffalo, the meeting-place that year of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which my father had promised to attend. Here they stayed with Mr. Marshall, a leading lawyer, who afterwards visited them in England.

Awake was spent at Niagara, partly in making holiday, partly in shaping the lectures which had to be delivered at the end of the trip. As to the impression made upon him by the Falls—an experience which, it is generally presumed, every traveller is bound to record—I may note that after the first disappointment at their appearance, inevitable wherever the height of a waterfall is less than the breadth, he found in them an inexhaustible charm and fascination. As in duty bound, he, with my mother, completed his experiences by going under the wall of waters to the "Cave of the Winds." But of all things nothing pleased him more than to sit of an evening by the edge of the river, and through the roar of the cataract to listen for the under-sound of the beaten stones grinding together at its foot.

Leaving Niagara on September 2, they travelled to Cincinnati, a 20-hours' journey, where they rested a day; on the 4th another 10 hours took them to Nashville, where they were to meet his sister, Mrs. Scott. Though 11 years his senior, she maintained her vigour and brightness undimmed, as indeed she did to the end of her life, surviving him by a few weeks. As she now stood on the platform at Nashville, Mrs. Huxley, who had never seen her, picked her out from among all the people by her piercing black eyes, so like those of her mother as described in the Autobiographical sketch ("Collected Essays" 1).

Nashville, her son's home, had been chosen as the meeting-place by Mrs. Scott, because it was not so far south nor so hot as Montgomery, where she was then living. Nevertheless in Tennessee the heat of the American summer was very trying, and the good people of the town further drew upon the too limited opportunities of their guest's brief visit by sending a formal deputation to beg that he would either deliver an address, or be entertained at a public dinner, or "state his views"—to an interviewer I suppose. He could not well refuse one of the alternatives; and the greater part of one day was spent in preparing a short address on the geology of Tennessee, which was delivered on the evening of September 7. He spoke for twenty minutes, but had scarcely any voice, which was not to be wondered at, as he was so tired that he had kept his room the whole day, while his wife received the endless string of callers.