am in a very fair way, and would snap my fingers at the Grand Turk. Wharton Jones was delighted when I told him about my appointment. Dim visions of strangely formed corpuscles seemed to cross his imagination like the ghosts of the kings in "Macbeth." What seems his head The likeness of a nucleated cell has on. [The law's delays are proverbial, but on this occasion, as on the return of the "Rattlesnake," the Admiralty seem to have been almost as provoking to the eager young surgeon as any lawyer could have been. The appointment was promised in May; it was not made till October. On the 6th of that month there is another letter to his sister, giving fuller particulars of his prospects on the voyage:--] My dearest Lizzie, At last I have really got my appointment and joined my ship. I was so completely disgusted with the many delays that had occurred that I made up my mind not to write to anybody again until I had my commission in my hand. Henceforward, like another Jonah, my dwelling-place will be the "inwards" of the "Rattlesnake," and upon the whole I really doubt whether Jonah was much worse accommodated, so far as room goes, than myself. My total length, as you are aware, is considerable, 5 feet 11 inches, possibly, but the height of the lower deck of the "Rattlesnake," which will be my especial location, is at the outside 4 feet 10 inches. What I am to do with the superfluous foot I cannot divine. Happily, however, there is a sort of skylight into the berth, so that I shall be able to sit with the body in it and my head out. Apart from joking, however, this is not such a great matter, and it is the only thing I would see altered in the whole affair. The officers, as far as I have seen them, are a very gentlemanly, excellent set of men, and considering we are to be together for four or five years, that is a matter of no small importance. I am not given to be sanguine, but I confess I expect a good deal to arise out of this appointment. In the 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.