first place, surveying ships are totally different from the ordinary run
of men-of-war. The requisite discipline is kept up, but not in the
martinet style. Less form is observed. From the men who are appointed
having more or less scientific turns, they have more respect for one
another than that given by mere position in the service, and hence that
position is less taken advantage of. They are brought more into contact,
and hence those engaged in the surveying service almost proverbially
stick by one another. To me, whose interest in the service is almost all
to be made, this is a matter of no small importance.

Then again, in a surveying ship you can work. In an ordinary frigate if
a fellow has the talents of all the scientific men from Archimedes
downwards compressed into his own peculiar skull they are all lost. Even
if it were possible to study in a midshipmen's berth, you have not room
in your "chat" for more than a dozen books. But in the "Rattlesnake" the
whole poop is to be converted into a large chart-room with bookshelves
and tables and plenty of light. There I may read, draw, or microscopise
at pleasure, and as to books, I have a carte blanche from the Captain to
take as many as I please, of which permission we shall avail
ourself--rather--and besides all this, from the peculiar way in which I
obtained this appointment, I shall have a much wider swing than
assistant surgeons in general get. I can see clearly that certain
branches of the natural history work will fall into my hands if I manage
properly through Sir John Richardson, who has shown himself a very kind
friend all throughout, and also through Captain Stanley I have been
introduced to several eminent zoologists--to Owen and Gray and Forbes of
King's College. From all these men much is to be learnt which becomes
peculiarly my own, and can of course only be used and applied by me.
From Forbes especially I have learned and shall learn much with respect
to dredging operations (which bear on many of the most interesting