considerable importance slowly gathered from the gifts of sailors and
officers. The museum curator was an enthusiastic naturalist, and
Huxley must have had the opportunity of extending his knowledge of at
least the external characters of many forms of life hitherto unknown
to him. A few years later, the curator of the museum, with the help of
two of Huxley's successors, published a _Manual of Natural History for
the Use of Travellers_, and it is certain that Huxley at least did not
lose at Haslar any of the enthusiasm for zoölogy with which he had
been inspired at the Charing Cross Hospital. The chief of the hospital
was Sir John Richardson, an excellent naturalist, and well known as an
arctic explorer. He seems to have recognised the peculiar ability of
his young assistant, and although he was a silent, reserved man, who
seldom encouraged his assistants by talking to them, he made several
attempts to obtain a suitable post for Huxley. Such a post was that of
surgeon to H.M.S. _Rattlesnake_, then about to start under the command
of Captain Owen Stanley for surveying work in the Torres Straits.
Captain Stanley had expressed a wish for a surgeon who knew something
of science, and, on the recommendation of Sir John Richardson,
obtained the post for Huxley. There was, however, to be a special
naturalist attached to the expedition, but Huxley had the opportunity
he wanted. After a brief stay of seven months at the Haslar Hospital
he left it for his ship, and thus definitely entered on his work in
the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: This and many other details in this chapter are taken
from an autobiographical sketch in the first volume of Huxley's
collected essays published by Macmillan, London, 1894.]