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Canniff Haight - "Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago"

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Books: The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1

L >> Leonard Huxley >> The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1




The best of all is that I have every reason to believe that Government
will carry out my scheme for a coast survey, so happily and pleasantly
begun at Tenby last year.

The final arrangements are almost complete, and I believe you may make
up your mind to have four months of me next year. Tenby shall be
immortalised and Jenkyn converted into a philosopher. [Jenkyn was
employed to collect shells, etc., at Tenby. He is often alluded to as
"the Professor."] By the way, I think the best way would be to retain
the shells till I come. My main purpose is to have in them a catalogue
of what Tenby affords.

Pray give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Dyster, and believe me, ever
yours,

T.H. Huxley.

April 1, 1855.

My dear Dyster,

By all that's good, your last note, which lies before me, has date a
month ago. I looked at it just now, and became an April fool on the
instant.

All the winds of March, however, took their course through my thorax and
eventuated in lectures. At least that is all the account I can give to
myself of the time, and an unprofitable account it is, for everything
but one's exchequer.

So far as knowledge goes it is mere prodigality spending one's capital
and adding nothing, for I find the physical exertion of lecturing quite
unfits me for much else. Fancy how last Friday was spent. I went to
Jermyn Street in the morning with the intention of preparing for my
afternoon's lecture. People came talking to me up to within a quarter of
an hour of the time, so I had to make a dash without preparation. Then I
had to go home to prepare for a second lecture in the evening, and after
that I went to a soiree, and got home about one o'clock in the morning.

I go on telling myself this won't do, but to no purpose.

You will be glad to hear that my affairs here are finally settled, and I
am regularly appointed an officer of the survey with the commission to
work out the natural history of the coast.

Edinburgh has been tempting me again, and in fact I believe I was within
an ace of going there, but the Government definitely offering me this
position, I was too glad to stop where I am.

I can make six hundred a year here, and that being the case, I conceive
I have a right to consult my own inclinations and the interest of my
scientific reputation. The coast survey puts in my hands the finest
opportunities that ever a man had, and it is a pity if I do not make
myself something better than a Caledonian pedagogue.

The great first scheme I have in connection with my new post is to work
out the Marine Natural History of Britain, and to have every species of
sea beast properly figured and described in the reports which I mean
from time to time to issue. I can get all the engravings and all the
printing I want done, but of course I am not so absurd as to suppose I
can work out all these things myself. Therefore my notion is to seek in
all highways and byways for fellow labourers. Busk will, I hope, supply
me with figures and descriptions of the British Polyzoa and Hydrozoa,
and I have confidence in my friend, Mr. Dyster of Tenby (are you
presumptuous enough to say you know him?) for the Annelids, if he won't
object to that mode of publishing his work. The Mollusks, the
Crustaceans, and the Fishes, the Echinoderms and the Worms, will give
plenty of occupation to the other people, myself included, to say
nothing of distribution and of the recent geological changes, all of
which come within my programme.

Did I not tell you it was a fine field, and could the land o' cakes give
me any scope like this?

April 9, 1855.

My dear Dyster,

I didn't by any means mean to be so sphinx-like in my letter, though you
have turned out an Oedipus of the first water. True it is that I mean to
"range myself," "live cleanly and leave off sack," within the next few
months--that is to say, if nothing happens to the good ship which is at
present bearing my fiancee homewards.

So far as a restless mortal--more or less aweary of most things--like
myself can be made happy by any other human being, I believe your good
wishes are safe of realisation; at any rate, it will be my fault if they
are not, and I beg you never to imagine that I could confound the piety
of friendship with the "efflorescent" variety.

I hope to marry in July, and make my way down to Tenby shortly
afterwards, and I am ready to lay you a wager that your vaticinations
touching the amount of work that WON'T be done don't come true.

So much for wives--now for WORMS--(I could not for the life of me help
the alliteration). I, as right reverend father in worms and Bishop of
Annelidae, do not think I ought to interfere with my most promising son,
when a channel opens itself for the publication of his labours. So do
what you will apropos of J--. If he does not do the worms any better
than he did the zoophytes, he won't interfere with my plans.

I shall be glad to see Mrs. Buckland's Echinoderm. I think it must be a
novelty by what you say. She is a very jolly person, but I have an
unutterable fear of scientific women.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

May 6, 1855.

My ship is not come home but is coming, and I have been in a state of
desperation at the continuous east winds. However, to-day there is a
westerly gale, and if it lasts I shall have news soon. You may imagine
that I am in an unsatisfactory state of mind between this and lecturing
five times a week.

I beg to say that the "goods" I expect are home produce this
transplanted (or sent a voyage as you do Madeira), and not foreign
growth by any means. But it is five years since we met, I am another man
altogether, and if my wife be as much altered, we shall need a new
introduction. Correspondence, however active, is a poor substitute for
personal communication and tells one but little of the inner life.

[Finally, on the eve of his marriage in July, Tyndall congratulates him
on being appointed to deliver the next course of Fullerian Lectures at
the Royal Institution:--

The fates once seemed to point to our connection in a distant land: we
are now colleagues at home, and I can claim you as my scientific
brother. May the gods continue to drop fatness upon you, and may your
next great step be productive of all the felicity which your warmest
friends or your own rebellious heart can desire.


CHAPTER 1.9.

1855.

Miss Heathorn and her parents reached England at the beginning of May
1855, and took up their abode at 8 Titchfield Terrace, not far from
Huxley's own lodgings and his brothers' house. One thing, however,
filled Huxley with dismay. Miss Heathorn's health had broken down
utterly, and she looked at death's door. All through the preceding year
she had been very ill; she had gone with friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wise, to
the newly opened mining-camp at Bathurst, and she and Mrs. Wise were
indeed the first women to visit it; returning to Sydney after rather a
rough time, she caught a chill, and being wrongly treated by a doctor of
the blood-letting, calomel-dosing school, she was reduced to a shadow,
and only saved by another practitioner, who reversed the treatment just
in time.

In his letters to her, Huxley had not at first realised the danger she
had been in; and afterwards tried to keep her spirits up by a cheerful
optimism that would only look forward to their joyful union and many
years of unbroken happiness to atone for their long parting.

But the reality alarmed him. He took her to one of the most famous
doctors of the day, as if merely a patient he was interested in. Then as
one member of the profession to another, he asked him privately his
opinion of the case. "I give her six months of life," said Aesculapius.]
"Well, six months or not," [replied Huxley,] "she is going to be my
wife." [The doctor was mightily put out. "You ought to have told me that
before." Of course, the evasive answer in such a contingency was
precisely what Huxley wished to avoid. Happily another leading doctor
held a much more favourable opinion, and said that with care her
strength would come back, slowly but surely.]

14 Waverley Place, Wednesday.

My dear Hooker,

My wife and I met again on Sunday last, and I have established herself,
her father and mother, close by me here at 8 Titchfield Terrace,
Regent's Park, and whenever you and Mrs. Hooker are in this part of the
world, and can find time to call there, you will find her anything but
surprised to see you.

God help me! I discover that I am as bad as any young fool who knows no
better, and if the necessity for giving six lectures a week did not
sternly interfere, I should be hanging about her ladyship's
apron-strings all day. She is in very bad health, poor child, and I have
some reason to be anxious, but I have every hope she will mend with
care.

Oh this life! "atra cura," as old Thackeray has it, sits on all our
backs and mingles with all our happiness. But if I go on talking in this
way you will wonder what has come over my philosophership.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[Black Care was still in the background, but had relaxed her hold upon
him. His spirits rose to the old point of gaiety. He writes how he gives
a lively lecture to his students, and in the midst of it satan prompts
him to crow or howl--a temptation happily resisted. He makes atrocious
puns in bidding Hooker to the wedding, which took place on July 21.]

Jermyn Street, July 6, 1855.

My dear Hooker,

I ought long since to have thanked you in Thomson's name as well as my
own for your "Flora Indica." Some day I promise myself much pleasure and
profit from the digestion of the Introductory Essay, which is probably
as much as my gizzard is competent to convert into nutrition.

I terminate my Baccalaureate and take my degree of M.A.-trimony (isn't
that atrocious?) on Saturday, July 21. After the unhappy criminals have
been turned off, there will be refreshments provided for the sheriffs,
chaplain, and spectators. Will you come? Don't if it is a bore, but I
should much like to have you there.

[It was not a large party that assembled at the George Huxleys for the
wedding, but all were life-long friends, including, besides the Fanning
clan and Mrs. Griffiths, an old Australian ally, Hooker, Tyndall, and
Dr. and Mrs. Carpenter. There was none present but felt that abundant
happiness was at least well earned after eight years of trial, and still
more that its best guarantee was the firm loyalty and devotion that had
passed through so many dangers of absence and isolation, so many
temptations to renounce the ideal course under stress of circumstance,
only to emerge strengthened and ennobled by the stern discipline of much
sacrifice.

Great as was his new happiness, he hardly stood in need of Darwin's word
of warning: "I hope your marriage will not make you idle; happiness, I
fear, is not good for work." Huxley could not sit idle for long. If he
had no occupation on hand, something worth investigation--and thorough
investigation--was sure to catch his eye. So he writes to Hooker from
Tenby:--]

15 St. Julian's Terrace, Tenby, August 16, 1855.

My dear Hooker,

I am so near the end of the honeymoon that I think it can hardly be
immodest if I emerge from private life and write you a letter, more
particularly as I want to know something. I went yesterday on an
expedition to see the remains of a forest which exists between tidemarks
at a place called Amroth, near here.

So far as I can judge there can be no doubt that this really is a case
of downward movement. The stools of the trees are in their normal
position, and their roots are embedded and interwoven in a layer of
stiff blue clay, which lies immediately beneath the superficial mud of
the shore. Layers of leaves, too, are mixed up with the clay in other
parts, and the bark of some of the trees is in perfect preservation. The
condition of the wood is very curious. It is like very hard cheese, so
that you can readily cut slices with a spade, and yet where more of the
trunk has been preserved some parts are very hard. The trees are, I
fancy, Beech and Oak. Could you identify slices if I were to send you
some?

Now it seems to me that here is an opportunity one does not often have
of getting some information about the action of sea water on wood, and
on the mode in which these vegetable remains may become embedded, etc.
etc., and I want to get you to tell me where I can find information on
submerged forests in general, so as to see to what points one can best
direct one's attention, and to suggest any inquiries that may strike
yourself.

I do not see how the stumps can occur in this position without direct
sinking of the land, and that such a sinking should have occurred
tallies very well with some other facts which I have observed as to the
nature of the bottom at considerable depths here.

We had the jolliest cruise in the world by Oxford, Warwick, Kenilworth,
Stratford, Malvern, Ross, and the Wye though it WAS a little rainy, and
though my wife's strength sadly failed at times.

Still she was on the whole much better and stronger than I had any right
to expect, and although I get frightened every now and then, yet there
can be no doubt that she is steadily though slowly improving. I have no
fears for the ultimate result, but her amendment will be a work of time.
We have really quite settled down into Darby and Joan, and I begin to
regard matrimony as the normal state of man. It's wonderful how light
the house looks when I come back weary with a day's boating to what it
used to do.

I hope Mrs. Hooker is well and about again. Pray give her our very kind
regards, and believe me, my dear Hooker, ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[At Tenby he stayed on through August and September, continuing his
occupations of the previous summer, dredging up specimens for his
microscope, and working partly for his own investigations, partly for
the Geological Survey.


CHAPTER 1.10.

1855-1858.

Up to his appointment at the School of Mines, Huxley's work had been
almost entirely morphological, dealing with the Invertebrates. His first
investigations, moreover, had been directed not to species-hunting, but
to working out the real affinities of little known orders, and thereby
evolving a philosophical classification from the limbo of "Vermes" and
"Radiata."

He had continued the same work by tracing homologies of development in
other classes of animals, such as the Cephalous Mollusca, the
Articulata, and the Brachiopods. On these subjects, also, he had a good
deal of correspondence with other investigators of the same cast of
mind, and even when he did not carry conviction, the impression made by
his arguments may be judged from the words of Dr. Allman, no mean
authority, in a letter of May 2, 1852:--]

I have thought over your arguments again and again, and while I am the
more convinced of their ingenuity, originality, and STRENGTH, I yet feel
ashamed to confess that I too must exclaim "tenax propositi." When was
it otherwise in controversy?

[Other speculations arising out of these researches had been given to
the public in the form of lectures, notably that on Animal Individuality
at the Royal Institution in 1852.

But after 1854, Paleontology and administrative work began to claim much
of the time he would willingly have bestowed upon distinctly zoological
research. His lectures on Natural History of course demanded a good deal
of first-hand investigation, and not only occasional notes in his
fragmentary journals, but a vast mass of drawings now preserved at South
Kensington attest the amount of work he still managed to give to these
subjects. But with the exception of the Hunterian Lectures of 1868, he
only published one paper on Invertebrates as late as 1860; and only half
a dozen, not counting the belated "Oceanic Hydrozoa," bear 1856 and
1859. The essay on the Crayfish did not appear until after he had left
Jermyn Street and Paleontology for South Kensington.

The "Method of Paleontology," published in 1856, was the first of a long
series of papers dealing with fossil creatures, the description of which
fell to him as Naturalist to the Geological Survey. By 1860 he had
published twelve such papers, and by 1871 twenty-six more, or
thirty-eight in sixteen years.

It was a curious irony of fate that led him into this position. He
writes in his Autobiography that, when Sir Henry de la Beche, the
Director-General of the Geological Survey, offered him the post Forbes
vacated of Paleontologist and Lecturer on Natural History,]

I refused the former point blank, and accepted the latter only
provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils, and
that I should give up Natural History as soon as I could get a
physiological post. But I held the office for thirty-one years, and a
large part of my work has been paleontological.

[Yet the diversion was not without great use. A wide knowledge of
paleontology offered a key to many problems that were hotly debated in
the years of battle following the publication of the "Origin of Species"
in 1859, as well as providing fresh subject-matter for the lectures in
which he continued to give the lay world the results of his thought.

On the administrative and official side he laid before himself the
organisation of the resources of the Museum of Practical Geology as an
educational instrument. This involved several years' work in the
arrangement of the specimens, so as to illustrate the paleontological
lectures, and the writing of "introductions" to each section of the
catalogue, which should be a guide to the students. The "Method of
Paleontology" mentioned above served as the prefatory essay to the whole
catalogue, and was reprinted in 1869 by the Smithsonian Institute of
Washington under the title of "Principles and Methods of Paleontology."

This work led to his taking a lively interest in the organisation of
museums in general, whether private, such as Sir Philip Egerton's, which
he visited in 1856; local, such as Warwick or Chester; or central, such
as the British Museum or that at Manchester.

With regard to the British Museum, the question had arisen of removing
the Natural History collections from the confined space and dusty
surroundings of Great Russell Street. A first memorial on the subject
had been signed, not only by many non-scientific persons, but also by a
number of botanists, who wished to see the British Museum Herbarium,
etc., combined with the more accessible and more complete collections at
Kew. Owing apparently to official opposition, the Natural History
sub-committee of the British Museum Trustees advised a treatment of the
Botanical Department which commended itself to none of the leading
botanists. Consequently a number of botanists and zoologists took
counsel together and drew up a fresh memorial from the strictly
scientific point of view. Huxley and Hooker took an active part in the
agitation.] "It is no use," [writes the former to his friend,] "putting
any faith in the old buffers, hardened as they are in trespasses and
sin." [And again:--]

I see nothing for it but for you and I to constitute ourselves into a
permanent "Committee of Public Safety," to watch over what is being done
and take measures with the advice of others when necessary...As for --
and id genus omne, I have never expected anything but opposition from
them. But I don't think it is necessary to trouble one's head about such
opposition. It may be annoying and troublesome, but if we are beaten by
it we deserve to be. With shall have to wade through oceans of trouble
and abuse, but so long as we gain our end, I care not a whistle whether
the sweet voices of the scientific mob are with me or against me.

[According to Huxley's views a complete system demanded a triple museum
for each subject, Zoology and Botany, since Geology was sufficiently
provided for in Jermyn Street--one typical or popular, "in which all
prominent forms or types of animals or plants, recent or fossil, should
be so displayed as to give the public an idea of the vast extent and
variety of natural objects, to diffuse a general knowledge of the
results obtained by science in their investigation and classification,
and to serve as a general introduction to the student in Natural
Science"; the second scientific, "in which collections of all available
animals and plants and their parts, whether recent or fossil, and in a
sufficient number of specimens, should be disposed conveniently for
study, and to which should be exclusively attached an appropriate
library, or collection of books and illustrations relating to science,
quite independent of any general library"; the third economic, "in which
economic products, whether zoological or botanical, with illustrations
of the processes by which they are obtained and applied to use, should
be so disposed as best to assist the progress of Commerce and the Arts."
It demanded further a Zoological and a Botanical Garden, where the
living specimens could be studied.

Some of these institutions existed, but were not under state control.
Others were already begun--e.g. that of Economic Zoology at South
Kensington; but the value of the botanical collections was minimised by
want of concentration, while as to zoology "the British Museum contains
a magnificent collection of recent and fossil animals, the property of
the state, but there is no room for its proper display and no
accommodation for its proper study. Its official head reports directly
neither to the Government nor to the governing body of the
institution...It is true that the people stroll through the enormous
collections of the British Museum, but the sole result is that they are
dazzled and confused by the multiplicity of unexplained objects, and the
man of science is deprived thrice a week of the means of advancing
knowledge."

The agitation of 1859-60 bore fruit in due season, and within twenty
years the ideal here sketched was to a great extent realised, as any
visitor to the Natural History Museum at South Kensington can see for
himself.

The same principles are reiterated in his letter of January 25, 1868, to
the Commissioners of the Manchester Natural History Society, who had
asked his advice as to the erection of a museum. But to the principles
he adds a number of most practical suggestions as to the actual
structure of the building, which are briefly appended in abstract. The
complement to this is a letter of 1872, giving advice as to a local
museum at Chester, and one of 1859 describing the ideal catalogue for a
geological museum.]

January 25, 1868.

The Commissioners of the Manchester Natural History Society.

SCHEME FOR A MUSEUM.

OBJECTS.

1. The public exhibition of a collection of specimens large enough to
illustrate all the most important truths of Natural History, but not so
extensive as to weary and confuse ordinary visitors.

2. The accessibility of this collection to the public.

3. The conservation of all specimens not necessary for the purpose
defined in Paragraph 1 in a place apart.

4. The accessibility of all objects contained in the museum to the
curator and to scientific students, without interference with the public
or by the public.

5. Thorough exclusion of dust and dirt from the specimens.

6. A provision of space for workrooms, and, if need be, lecture-rooms.

PRINCIPLE.

A big hall (350 x 40 x 30) with narrower halls on either side, lighted
from the top. The central hall for the public, the others for the
curators, etc. The walls, of arches upon piers about 15 feet high,
bearing on girders a gallery 5 feet wide in the public room, and 3 feet
6 inches in the curators'.

The cases should be larger below, 5 feet deep, and smaller above, 2 feet
deep, with glass fronts to the public, and doors on the curators' side.

For very large specimens--e.g. a whale--the case could expand into the
curators' part without encroaching on the public part, so as to keep the
line of windows regular.

Specimens of the Vertebrata, illustrations of Physical Geography and
Stratigraphical Geology, should be placed below.

The Invertebrata, Botanical and Mineralogical specimens in the
galleries.

The partition to be continued above the galleries to the roof, thus
excluding all the dust raised by the public.

Space for students should be provided in the curators' rooms.

Storage should be AMPLE.

A museum of this size gives twice as much area for exhibition purposes
as that offered by ALL the cases in the present museum.

Athenaeum Club, December 8, 1872.

Dear Sir,

I regret that your letter has but just come into my hands, so that my
reply cannot be in time for your meeting, which, I understand you to
say, was to be held yesterday.

I have no hesitation whatever in expressing the opinion that, except in
the case of large and wealthy towns (and even in their case primarily),
a Local Museum should be exactly what its name implies, namely
"Local"--illustrating local Geology, local Botany, local Zoology, and
local Archaeology.

Such a museum, if residents who are interested in these sciences take
proper pains, may be brought to a great degree of perfection and be
unique of its kind. It will tell both natives and strangers exactly what
they want to know, and possess great scientific interest and importance.
Whereas the ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, Hindoo
idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, scorpions, and conch shells--who
shall describe the weary inutility of it? It is really worse than
nothing, because it leads the unwary to look for the objects of science
elsewhere than under their noses. What they want to know is that their
"America is here," as Wilhelm Meister has it.