“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 palaeontological.”

The salary of the post of Lecturer on Natural History was scanty, but De La Beche, who evidently recognised Huxley’s genius, and was anxious to have him attached even against his will to palaeontological work, created a place for him as Naturalist to the Geological Survey, by which a more suitable income was found for him.  His official duties were at first in the Geological Museum of the Survey, but were distinguished from those of the special Palaeontologist, Mr. Harvey.  His income was now assured, and for the rest of his life, until towards its close, when he retired to Eastbourne, he lived the ordinary life of a professional man of science in London.  He was now able to marry, and on July 21, 1855, he was married to a lady whom he had met in Sydney in 1847, and whom he had not seen since the Rattlesnake left Sydney finally in the beginning of May, 1850.

During the years 1856, 1857, and 1858, he held the post of Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution, choosing as the title of his first two courses of lectures Physiology and Comparative Anatomy, as he still cherished the idea of being in the first place a physiologist.

[Illustration:  THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, 1857 Reproduced by permission from Natural Science, vol. vii., No. 42]

“Moreover,” writes Professor Michael Foster, “like most other young professional men of science, he had to eke out his not too ample income by labours undertaken chiefly for their pecuniary reward.  He acted as examiner, conducting for instance, during the years 1856 to 1863, and again 1865 to 1870, the examinations in physiology and comparative anatomy at the University of London, making even an examination paper feel the influence of the new spirit in biology; and among his examinees at that time there was at least one who, knowing Huxley’s writings, but his writings only, looked forward to the viva voce test, not as a trial but as an occasion of delight.  He wrote almost incessantly for all editors who were prepared to give adequate pay to a pen able to deal with scientific themes in a manner at once exact and popular, incisive and correct.  During this period he was gradually passing from his first anatomical love, the structure of the Invertebrates, to Vertebrate work, and although he continued to take a deep interest in the course of the progress of research in that group of animals, the publication of his great work on oceanic hydrozoa by the Ray Society was the last piece of important work he wrote upon any anatomical subject apart from vertebrates.  His work in connection with the Geological Survey