air. The whole region is a paradise
for the naturalist. Along the seaward side of the reef the great ocean
surges and thunders perpetually. Between it and the shore the quiet
channel glows under the tropical skies. It was amid such scenes as
these that the _Rattlesnake_ moved for nearly four years in the slow
work of taking soundings, fixing the exact position of channels
through the outer reef by slow triangular measurements, and generally
preparing for the safety of the commerce of all nations. The ship went
first up to Port Curtis in Brisbane; then fetched back to Sydney. Its
next trip was south to the strait between Tasmania and Australia,
then back to Sydney; then again along the Barrier Reef right up to the
Torres Straits. After work there, it returned again to Sydney, and
then set out for the Louisiade Archipelago, which stretches through
the coral sea south-eastward from New Guinea; then again to the
Australian shores of the Torres Straits, and finally arrived in Sydney
in March, 1850, where the Captain suddenly died, and the ship was
ordered to return to England.

Throughout the voyage MacGillivray and Huxley busied themselves with
collecting animals on sea and on shore. MacGillivray seems to have
taken for his share of the spoil chiefly such animals as provided
shells or skins or skeletons suitable for handing over to museums.
Huxley occupied himself incessantly with dissecting tools and with the
microscope, with results to be described in a later chapter. The
better equipped expeditions of modern times were provided with
elaborate appliances for bringing up samples of living creatures from
all depths of the floor of the ocean, and with complicated towing nets
for securing the floating creatures of the surface of the seas. The
_Rattlesnake_ naturalists had to content themselves with simple
apparatus devised by themselves. At an early period of the voyage
attempts were made to take deep soundings, but no bottom was reached
at a depth of two thousand four hundred fathoms, and their later work
was confined to surface animals or to inshore dredging in shallow
waters. They began near Rio.

"None of the ship's boats could be spared, so I [MacGillivray]
hired one pulled by four negro slaves who, although strong,
active fellows, had great objections to straining their backs at
the oar, when the dredge was down. No sieve having been
supplied, we were obliged to sift the contents of the dredg