Happily there was another way of publishing, if the Admiralty would grant him time to arrange his papers and superintend their publication. The Royal Society had at their disposal an annual grant of money for the publication of scientific works. If the Government would not contribute directly to publish the researches made under their auspices, the favourable reception which his preliminary papers had met with led Huxley to hope that his greater work would be undertaken by the Royal Society. If the leading men of science attested the value of his work, the Admiralty might be induced to let him stay in England with the nominal appointment as assistant surgeon to H.M.S. "Fisguard" at Woolwich, for "particular service," but with leave of absence from the ship so that he could live and pursue his avocations in London. There was a precedent for this course in the case of Dr. Hooker, when he had to work out the scientific results of the voyage of the "Erebus" and "Terror." In this design he was fortified by his old Haslar friend, Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Watt Reid, who wrote: "They cannot, and, I am sure, will not wish to stand in your way at Whitehall." Meanwhile, the first person, naturally, he had thought of consulting was his old chief, Sir John Richardson, who had great weight at the Admiralty, and to him he wrote the following letter before leaving Plymouth.] To Sir John Richardson. October 31, 1850. I regret very much that in consequence of our being ordered to be paid off at Chatham, instead of Portsmouth, as we always hoped and expected, I shall be unable to submit to your inspection the zoological notes and drawings which I have made during our cruise. They are somewhat numerous (over 180 sheets of drawings), and I hope not altogether valueless, since they have been made with as great care and attention as I am master of--and with a microscope, such as has rarely, if ever, made a voyage round the world before. A further reason for indulging in this hope consists in the fact that they relate for the most part to animals hitherto very little known, whether from their rarity or from their perishable nature, and that they bear upon many curious physiological points. I may thus classify and enumerate the observations I have made:-- 1. Upon the organs of hearing and circulation in some of the transparent Crustacea, and upon the structure of certain of the lower forms of Crustacea. 2. Upon some very remarkable new forms of Annelids, and especially upon the much contested genus Sagitta, which I have evidence to show is neither a Mollusc nor an Epizoon, but an Annelid. 3. Upon the nervous system of certain Mollusca hitherto imperfectly described--upon what appears to me to be an urinary organ in many of them--and upon the structure of Firola and Atlanta, of which latter I have a pretty complete account. 4. Upon two perfectly new (ordinally new) species of Ascidians.