PREFACE.

It was originally intended that an account of the Surveying Voyage of
H.M.S. Rattlesnake should have been undertaken conjointly by the late
Captain Owen Stanley and myself, in which case the narrative would have
been constructed from the materials afforded by the journals of both, and
the necessary remarks upon hydrographical subjects would have been
furnished by that officer, whose lamented death in March, 1850, prevented
this arrangement from being carried out. Not having had access to Captain
Stanley's private journals, I considered myself fortunate, when the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty--in addition to sanctioning the
publication of my account of the Voyage in question--directed that every
facility should be afforded me in consulting the manuscript charts and
other hydrographical results at their disposal, and to Rear-Admiral Sir
F. Beaufort, C.B., Commander C.B. Yule, R.N., and Lieutenant J. Dayman,
R.N., I beg to express my thanks for the liberal manner in which they
carried out their Lordships' intentions.

To the other gentlemen who have contributed Appendices to this
work--George Busk, Esquire F.R.S., Dr. R.G. Latham, Professor Edward
Forbes, F.R.S., and Adam White, Esquire, F.L.S.--I have also to offer my
best thanks. It also affords me great pleasure to record my obligations
to T. Huxley, Esquire R.N., F.R.S., late Assistant-Surgeon of the
Rattlesnake, for the handsome manner in which he allowed me to select
from his collection of drawings those which now appear as illustrations;
and I may express the hope, which in common with many others I entertain,
that the whole of his researches in marine zoology may speedily be laid
before the scientific world. My own collections in Natural History have
been submitted to the examination of various eminent naturalists. Many of