pursuit of the objects which my friends, the middies, christened
"Buffons," after the title conspicuous on a volume of the "Suites à
Buffon," which stood on my shelf in the chart room.

During the four years of our absence, I sent home communication after
communication to the "Linnean Society;" with the same result as that
obtained by Noah when he sent the raven out of his ark. Tired at last of
hearing nothing about them, I determined to do or die, and in 1849 I
drew up a more elaborate paper and forwarded it to the Royal Society.
This was my dove, if I had only known it. But owing to the movements of
the ship, I heard nothing of that either until my return to England in
the latter end of the year 1850, when I found that it was printed and
published, and that a huge packet of separate copies awaited me. When I
hear some of my young friends complain of want of sympathy and
encouragement, I am inclined to think that my naval life was not the
least valuable part of my education.

Three years after my return were occupied by a battle between my
scientific friends on the one hand and the Admiralty on the other, as to
whether the latter ought, or ought not, to act up to the spirit of a
pledge they had given to encourage officers who had done scientific work
by contributing to the expense of publishing mine. At last the
Admiralty, getting tired, I suppose, cut short the discussion by
ordering me to join a ship, which thing I declined to do, and as
Rastignac, in the "Père Goriot," says to Paris, I said to London, "_à
nous deux_." I desired to obtain a Professorship of either Physiology or
Comparative Anatomy, and as vacancies occurred I applied, but in vain.
My friend, Professor Tyndall, and I were candidates at the same time, he
for the Chair of Physics and I for that of Natural History in the
University of Toronto, which, fortunately, as it turned out, would not