Rolleston papers correspondence from H.N. Moseley
Henry Nottidge Moseley in later life 1998.267.85
Rolleston papers, Ashmolean Museum:
Transcription of documents which relate to the development of museum anthropology at Oxford:
GR/A/2
There are a series of letters from Moseley when he was studying in Austria, they do not contain any information about anthropological matters, they are dated:
Vienna July 11 [1869 or 1870, probably 1870 as he says he has enjoyed his stay very much which implies he has been there for a while, Dictionary of National Biography [DNB] confirms he is Vienna then]
Leipzig [no date but probably 1871 as that is when DNB says he was studying in Leipzig under Carl Ludwig]
Leipzig July 20 [1871?]
I have put rough dates to these and put them in date order with Moseley Challenger correspondence. I also placed a misplaced last page of a letter which had been separately filed with its other half to form a whole.
There is also a series of letters from HN Moseley’s mother, Harriet, from Cecil Lodge, to Rolleston where she is forwarding messages from Moseley as HNM says she will in the following letters.
GR/A/2/1
Royal Herbarium
Kew Surrey
Oct 26 1872
Dear Dr Rolleston
Will you allow William to make a considerable quantity of dammar varnish [1] for me for the voyage. I will pay him for the materials and also his time. He can do it after hours. I should like three bottles as big as the one I brought from Vienna. Barbers people cannot make it. I dont know why. I have to go down to Sheerness on the 5th of next month to superintend the taking in of our gear into the Challenger. I have to stay down there a fortnight. I expect I shall go into my cabin at once as the ship is commissioned on the 1st. I am not yet certain whether I shall come to Oxford for a day or so before of [sic – or] after the 5th. I will tell you all about the Cape when I see you. yours truly
HN Moseley
[1] Dammar gum, or damar gum, is obtained from the Dipterocarpaceae family of trees in India and East Asia, it is resin and was used for varnish.
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Kew Surrey
Oct 28 1872
Dear Prof Rolleston
I have a letter from Hartnack [1] in which he says the microscopes are sent. He has been speedy indeed owing to your assistance. Will you kindly let William undo the parcel and see if the things of which I enclose a list are all there and if so post the enclosed acknowlegement [sic] to Hartnack. I will pay William for the stamp when I come to Oxford yours truly
HN Moseley
Dr Hooker has lent me a number of coloured drawings of oceanic animals which he made when on the Erebus and Terror voyage. They are the most beautiful I have ever seen and yet apparently have lain in Grays hands at the British Museum for 20 years without being used. I shall ask him to let me bring them to Oxford. I dare say he would present them to the Museum indeed he almost offered to give them to me
[1] Edmund Hartnack (1826--1891) was a renowned microscope manufacturer
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I have written an account of the Expn for Nature It is in two weeks
Oct 30 1872
Dear Prof Rolleston
Our ships commission is put off till the 15th Nov instead of 1st as was expected. I am therefore uncertain about my movements at present. I think it probable I may come to Oxford in about 8 days. Many thanks for your kind offers of a bed. I shall certainly avail myself of it. Murrays letter is satisfactory as being perfectly natural. I have got an enormous quantity of soluble Berlin blue from Germany [1] More than we shall want. I will therefore bring you a small quantity and charge you proportionate [illegible] I suppose you want it Thanks for letting William make dammar for me. If he likes to make it in quantity after tea hours for sale Baker will be glad to take it of [sic, off] him. It is not to be had in London and everyone wants it. He would make a little money by it. I will speak to him about it when I come to Oxford. I will bring up Hookers drawings when I come. I see him nearly every day. He is very kind. I am at work at the Planarian paper now. I find it very tedious work & am sick of it. But I must of course finish it I hope to bring it to Oxford with me
yours truly
HN Moseley
Kind regards to Mrs Rolleston
[1] Better known as Prussian blue, blue synthetic pigment, it was used as a a stain in lab work perhaps why Moseley was taking it?
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Maskelyne has got the impression that Earwaker [1] is not liked much at Oxford
Kew
Surrey
Nov 1 1872
Dear Dr Rolleston
I dare say you heard about the Ceylon Museum appointment indeed I think I told you it was offered to me. The salary is now raised. It is to be £600 and house with prospect of rise. I saw a letter which the new governors had written to Maskelyne about the appointment. What is especially wanted is a thorough gentleman one who will get on well with all the different officers & people in Colombo and also with the planters a very difficult thing to do in a small community The man must also be thoroughly enthusiastic and likely to interest others in his work. Now of course I know a good many people in Ceylon and especially well Thwaites. I should be extremely sorry if a man went out who was likely to fall out with him and others or on the other hand a man who would turn dealer for his own benefit like Houldsworth. A man is applying for the post named Earwaker. Now I have heard that he is rather a snob. I may be wrong but I certainly had that impression. If this is the case and he goes out to Colombo as a sample of the Oxford Natural Science schools I am sure it will be a very bad thing for the University reputation besides being a very bad thing for the place which I should grieve over almost still more.
£600 a year with a rise &c is a good sum & a good man ought to be forthcoming. Perhaps Sharkey might think of it at this price.
The curator will be able to go the yearly excursions to the pearl beds and also visit the Maldives and Sabadives [?] entirely unknown He will have assistants and probably travelling allowances when he makes excursions in the wild parts of the country after beasts. I almost wish I was going to take the place myself.
Prof Semper of W...bourg [?] is talked of. He told me he would like the place. Mr Gregory and all the Ceylon people would however far soon have an Oxford man. But he must be a thorough gentleman This is a sine qua non. Please let me know abut Earwaker in confidence
yours truly HN Moseley
[1] Possibly (or perhaps as the name is so unusual, probably) John Parsons Earwaker, student at Merton College, Oxford, taking his BA in 1872. In 1871 he joined the Oxford Architectural & Historical Society and was almost immediately elected Secretary. He became Deputy Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum sometime in 1873. Ovenell suggests Earwaker's post was honorary as his name does not appear in the Museum's accounts. George Rowell continued to be Underkeeper [Ovenell, 1986: 232-3]
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If in town next week run down and see the ship
Robertson [1] has a wonderful cirrliped [?] parasite on a fish. It is very valuable and entirely new. Semper [?] was wild when I told him about it.
Nov 6 1872
Dear Prof Rolleston
I have to go down to Sheerness tomorrow to see some of our gear stowed. I shall stay there very likely a week or fortnight. Many thanks for your kind remarks about the Academy article. and also for the information through Wyndham about Earwater [?]. He certainly will not get the place. I have written to Galton [2] about it and Maskelyne seems to think he would be a good man. I should think him just the man and he has written to me to say he would be delighted to get the place. Perhaps you might write to Maskelyne [3] about him. Does Prof Huxley [4] know of Galton? Gregory writes to him about the matter as well as to Maskelyne. Any one recommended by you Maskelyne and backed up at all by Huxley would get the place at once. I will look into Elliots about the goniometer [5] this afternoon. Baker is very anxious to get some Dammar of Williams make. How about the sea snakes from Ceylon. They might to be turning up now [?]
yours truly
HN Moseley
[1] Probably Charles Robertson, Acland’s assistant who worked at OUMNH.
[2] Presumably Francis Galton (1822-1911)
[3] Maskelyne: Nevil Story Maskelyne Oxford professor of mineralogy 1856-1895.
[4] Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
[5] goniometer: an instrument that either measures an angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position
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New University Club
St James’s Street SW
Dec 11 1872
Dear Dr Rolleston
The ship does not start till this day week. I go down Monday that day Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday will suit if you care to come & see the Challenger. No need to write I shall be on the spot at least till Thursday midday.
Robertson promised to come and see her I wrote to him to same effect
Hoping to see you
I am
yours truly
HN Moseley
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[Undated letter but must be around this time as it mentions an offer of a book that Moseley later thanks Rolleston for]
32 Cumberland Terrace
Regents Park
London N.W.
Dear Prof Rolleston
Many thanks for your kind offer of De Candolles geographic Botanique. I have not got it but was going to buy it unless Dr Hooker sent me his copy as I half believe he proposed to do when at the R Soc visit to the ship at Sheerness. But what with the worry of having the ship invaded with strangers and the champagne I hardly know what passed. On Saturday we started to go to Portsmouth got as far as Dungeness and anchored for the night. Got underway at 4 on the Sunday and by evening were about 10 miles beyond Beachy Head in the midst of a hurricane. We could make no way so stood off shore all night and got about half way over the channel. In the morning we made back to the Downs where I left the ship yesterday landing in a precarious manner in a small boat. [insert] at Deal [end insert] We lost our cutter broke one of the whiskers of the bowsprit and smashed a cot of small gear. We rolled 35 degrees. I never had such a knocking about before. The laboratory bottles &c stood well. The gale was a fine sight from the bridge at midnight I stayed up watching it sometime I was too much knocked about to get any sleep until my swinging bed upset and jammed me between itself and the ships side. I dont know whether the ship went round to Portsmouth today or not. I go to Bristol tomorrow. I should like De Candolle very much if you can spare it
yours truly
HN Moseley
I will send the remainder of my Planarian paper to you to be copied out by the Museum man (I forget his name) If you will pay him and send account of expenses to my uncle W Moseley 32 Cumberland Terrace Regents Park London N.W. He will repay you. I will however send a full account with the paper. The Saturday has a pestilent puff of Bastain.
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Cecil Lodge
Stoke Bishop
Bristol
Dec 13 1872
Dear Dr Rolleston
I send you by rail the conclusion of my paper on Planarians. Please give it to Mr Baily to copy out with what he has already. I have written you will see a short preface in which I have stated how great a share you had in the matter. I have had to do it all in a great hurry & I fear it is not very gracefully put. I hope you will accept the will for the deed and alter it if you like. The summary and conclusion will serve as an abstract to be read and it should also be published with the main paper at the end with the omission of the first page. I fear the paper is hurriedly written. I cannot help it. I really have not had time to polish it up. Please let me know if by any chance it is accepted by the R Soc. If you will kindly pay the mail and let my Uncle William Moseley know the amount he will send you a cheque at once. I am sorry to throw the labour of this paper upon you but cannot do other wise in my present position. Many thanks for De Candolle [1] I shall prize it highly. I cannot come to Oxford but when I get to Portsmouth on Monday I will telegraph to you how long we shall be there in case you can run down. Appleton has been writing to me about sending him newsletters I have written to him to say that I want to be paid well for them if I write and that the Athenaeum will pay well. I hope he wont be too much drawn. I have never got a penny for anything I have written yet & it is time I did. With kind regards to Mrs Rolleston
Believe me, yours truly
HN Moseley
[1] Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, Swiss botanist (1778-1841)
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HMS Challenger
Dec 21 1872
Dear Dr Rolleston
I hoped you would have come down here to see us before our start. A list of our dates will be sent to Robertson for general use. I will supplement it from time to time. Copies of telegrams sent home about us from each port will also reach you. Please let me know the fate of my Planarian paper
In great haste
yours truly
HN Moseley
We sail at 11 tomorrow
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HMS Challenger Gibraltar Jany 19 1873
Dear Dr Rolleston
Many thanks for your letter and the enclosure relating to my fathers connection [1] with the Bristol [?] Trade School. It is of course very gratifying and I am especially glad of it as it will be a source of great pleasure to my mother. [2] I am very sorry that you appear to have such trouble about my Planarian paper. [3] I fear I must leave it in your hands though I am extremely loathe to do so. It is impossible to have the proof sent out to me. There would be no certainty of its reaching me. Here we are at Gibraltar where there is a daily mail from England and not a single newspaper for the mess has arrived nor have I any letter from home nor had I any at Lisbon. I am very sorry to take up your time in the matter. Could you not get some student who is not well off to verify the references and pay him a pound or two for it? My uncle has funds of mine for such a purpose. I am enjoying my cruise very much. We have had splendid weather since we left Lisbon. We have manage [sic] to trawl in 600 fathoms and got some fish of course blov with their eyes nearly blown out of their heads. We have had splendid salpoe some four inches long appendi... [illegible] sagitta heroe ajdippe [?] & other ctenophora velella & ... [illegible] [?] and lots of interesting little cyclops and cofefods including Haeckels splendid sappherina which I had seen in the Indian ocean before. (Brown vol v p 401) We have also go thousands of Radiolariaus Collospaera ... &c I feel my ignorance of zoology very much alongside of Suhm [4] who has done nothing else all his life and has a wonderful knowledge. He is a very good sort for a German and a very clear well informed man. He reads like the devil He is at present reading Grisebachs vegetation der erde. [5] He is certain to cut me out entirely as far as animal biology goes on this cruise. He takes all the [illegible] from the deep sea & elsewhere & the professor the [illegible] & sponges. I expect the only thing I shall get hold of will be the ...cates and acti... but we really cannot yet tell. The professor [6] seems a jolly sort of fellow and knows a great deal. His book on the deep sea is very good I suppose you know it so it well by this time. He is opposed to Darwinism but not on religious “grounds” of which I am happy to say he appears to have none. The whole of the scientific staff including the artist are in a like condition except Murray who has a firm belief in H Spencer’s “incomprehensible absolute[”] [insert] which I cannot shake [end insert] he having been brought up a unitarian. The only one of the officers in an enlightened condition is the Chief Engineer a very sharp fellow who calls daily prayers ‘Chinchinning old Joss.” I have made no converts & I dont intend to try, but no doubt the influence of the scientific staff generally will be in the right direction. I am going to write something for the Academy or some such paper. perhaps also the Athenaeum as that is certain to pay. We leave here on Thursday night Letters will reach us up to eight days after that in Madeira. I should be very glad to hear whether the R. Soc. would take my paper on Planarians or no. With many thanks for the trouble you are taking about it and kind regards to yourself and Mrs Rolleston. Believe me yours truly
HN Moseley
I will write again from Madeira
[1] Henry Moseley (1801-1872) Mathematician
[2] Harriet Nottidge
[3] On the Anatomy and Histology of the Land Planarians of Ceylon (1874), were read before the Royal Society
[4] Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm (1847-1875) German naturalist who served on HMS Challenger
[5] August Heinrich Rudolf Grisebach Die Vegetation der Erde nach Ihrer Klimatischen Anordnung 1872
[6] Professor Charles Wyville Thomson
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HMS Challenger Gibraltar
Jany 26 1873
Dear Prof Rolleston
I wrote to you when we first arrived here and no doubt you have got my letter I got one from you the other day which had gone to Malta by mistake and come back again. I got a lot of information here about the monkeys from the Serjeant at the copper signal station. I have sent it to my mother as part of her letter in case she cares to read it. She will send it on to you I dare say you may like to look at it. Please send it back to my mother when you have done with it. We leave here today at four oclock and go over to Tangier for a visit of 12 hours or so just to look at a Moorish town. We shall be in Madeira in 14 days and at St Thomas about March 6.
We have got 7 large boxes of cave brecchia with bones in it from one of the Gibraltar caves on board. We are to look them up at leisure. With kind regards to Mrs Rolleston & yourself Believe me
yours truly
HN Moseley
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HMS Challenger
St Thomas March 23 1873
Dear Dr Rolleston
Many thanks for your letter which I received on my arrival here. I fear that my Hauaria [?] paper has been a source of great trouble to you. I hope I may hear at Bermuda that it has been well received. [insert] But I fear it is not good enough for the Royal Soc. [end insert] We have been here now since Sunday last and have been able to explore the island pretty thoroughly. There are frigate birds flying overhead with their [insert] two [end insert] long outstretched tail feathers and lots of brown pelicans flapping along over the water at a moderate height and dashing down suddenly like gannets with a splash into the water. The other day I went out in persuit [sic] of wild (feral) goats and pigs. All sorts of domestic beasts are wild here in the island though to a [insert] in [end insert] small numbers. They get away from the houses during the hurricanes and then breed wild. There are guinea fowls and also common barn-door fowls about in the bush. We did not succeed in coming up to the goats or pigs the other on our excursion but after a terrible crawl through thick and thorny covert got to a spot [insert] on the coast shore [end insert] where we found the pelicans coming overhead in constantly succeeding flights of four five and six on their way to their feeding ground. We sat down and potted at them. A dozen were knocked down in no time but we only bagged four, the remainded [sic - remainder] disappeared into the sea for the sharks. Our guide a German who keeps cattle and goats on the shooting ground an old sugar estate over[...] [illegible] with bush since the emancipation carried off the birds to eat. He says they are very good [illegible] I would never have dreamt of anyone eating pelican. we took off the pouches to make tobacco pouches with. There are lots of one species of humming bird about here and I have seen plenty and shot one or two. Their mode of flight is exactly like that of the humming bird moth ... There are of course all sorts of other interesting tropical things here which I have not seen alive in Ceylon. I shall write a long account of them to my mother and she will send you the letter if you care to see it. I write a sort of diary and send it to her when opportunity offers. If you care to see it and know exactly what we are doing you can always get it from her. But you must make allowance for the circumstances under which it is written. I keep another journal for my own use. I go off We were to have sailed yesterday but had to go out 15 miles today to tow in a dismasted vessels so that our time is put off till tomorrow afternoon. A magnetic party which went off on Saturday to a small island reported it as full of wild goats They saw about 150. I go off with a party tomorrow at 5 A.M. in one of the ships cutters in persuit [sic]. As the island is very small not a mile long I fancy we are pretty certain to do some butchery. The island and goats belong to a shipbuilder in the town here and he shoots the goats occasionally. We have sent him a message that we are going to shoot them. It will be too late for him to stop us when he gets the message and as we sail at 4 pm he wont be able to make a row, but he probably will have no objection so says the sub lieutenant who sent him the message. I am not at all sure of this but mean to go anyhow. I am not quite so comfortable on board as I anticipated. I am gr It is very trying indeed to be in a subordinate position after one has been ones own master for several years. I have no friend or [sic – on] board though I am not at daggers drawn While with any body and I like the Chief Engineer and some of the Lieutenants and subs very well. I dont get on very well with the Professor who is not so lenient with regard to my many faults as you always were. Suhm [see earlier] is in constant attendance upon him and has quite cut me out as I expected. He takes all the worms and crustacea from the deep sea and would probably get any remarkable fish or anything else that turned up. He knows a great deal more of zoology than I so it is quite right that it should be so. but I find it very disconcerting to have no [insert] personal [end insert] interest in what strange animals we get. I have done nothing original yet. The professor ...ed [illegible] me to work at [illegible] but we have not seen one for months. I think I shall take to Salpoe [?] But at present I employ my time in mounting Bryozoos sifting the mud &c. I wont say anything about this Perhaps matters will change shortly. I am a fool no doubt to mention the subject but I feel very down in the mouth occasionally and then it is a relief to open ones mind a little to a friend.
I will send you a few little bottles of things at least I hope so together with a Carib hatchet which the English parson here gave me. [1]
Please give my best regards to Mrs Rolleston and remember me to Lankester and Robertson
Believe me
yours truly
HN Moseley
I am just reading the De Candolle which you gave me
[1] Carib axe is possibly 1887.1.274
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Everith House
New York
May 17 1873
Dear Dr Rolleston
The Challenger as I dare say you have gathered from the papers failed to make Sandy Hook on account of head winds and put in at Halifax NS instead Prof Thomson kindly offered me the chance of a trip through the states allowing me to join the ship again at Bermuda. I left Halifax last Saturday and my steamer leaves [insert] this [end insert] for Bermuda on the 22nd. I have been to Boston and am now going to Niagara by Albany. I started with a party of five from Halifax and between that place and ...polis we encountered the normal railway accident. The engine and all the cars went off the rails just at the approach to the long viaduct over a gully of about 100 feet deep. The viaduct was loosely put together of timber and as usual only just wide enough to leave about a foot of sleep projecting on each side of the single track and without any vestige of parapet. The engine brought up between two sleepers with the front wheels outside the track on one side and within about ten inches of the verge about a third of the way over the bridge. The engine drivers and conductor jumped for their lives before we got on to the bridge after screwing down the brea.. [illegible] and reversing. A pound less steam on the piston and we should all have been goosed. The conductor and train officials seemed not in the least surprized. The same engine had been off the rails at the other side of the same bridge coming the opposite way not long ago and the sleepers there showed a deep scoring mark made by the wheels as they ran over them when off the track. They had not been shifted though some were actually broken through. An agricultural native who came to look on said to me I know that engine well you see its the strongest and fastest engine the company has got and does most work so they don’t like to part with it but that where it is Its a quarter of an inch too wide for the track. I first was at the end of the last car and first found out that there was an accident from seeing all the men in the car engaged in a desperate race for towards me for the door with horribly pale and terrified faces led by a beggar who had been trying all along to plant a tract on me and my companions. The women all fainted slap off and were not disturbed in the hurry. I did not realize the condition of affairs at first and not knowing as most of the other passengers did that there was a bridge in the question wait [?] quietly in the corner and expected to see a splendid fight at the door but the conductor rushed up and spoilt that by shouting that all danger was over. No sooner had he said so than we heard the whistle of another train coming up behind and he bolted off with a flag luckily in time to stop it whilst the women were hauled out and all hands made up the embankment expecting very likely to see a jolly smash but that did not come off. The Some workmen were procured and jacks and which are always carried in readiness were produced and the cars were soon on the rails again. The engine was too much smashed to be got up in a hurry so the usual method was pursued. The next train coming the other way stopped on the other side of the bridge and waited till the passengers and baggage shifted from it to the one behind us. We shifted into the empty one and both trains went back to their starting point. We lost five hours by the accident and could not get any thing fit to eat but it would never have done to have travelled by rail in the Canada district without seeing an accident. If a man is unruly or makes himself obnoxious in a car on the line they just stop the train & hook him out on the track wherever they may be in the middle of a forest or in snow and go on their way rejoicing. Soon after we left St Johns a man drunk probably jumped off the end of the train [illegible] going at full speed. The conductor told me he saw him jump and that he fell with a bang and lay quite stiff [insert] as long as in sight [end insert] and he guessed he hurt himself. He should look in the papers to see if he was picked up dead. I did not mean to write such a lot about the trains but perhaps it may amuse you. At St Johns I asked an old aged resident about a large vessel in the port. He said “Thats what brought the scotchmen.” He told me that 500 Scotchmen had been landed in a batch from this ship and seemed astounded that such a calamity was unknown to me. He seemed of your way of thinking How you would have enjoyed the trip to New Brunswick in that ship. At Boston We came through the state of Maine to Boston. It is a horrible place to travel in not a drop of liquor to be got for a long day. We had a small store of raw brandy and had to take a private compartment in the a pullman car draw down the blinds & shut the door before we could swig it out of the bottle. Dipsomaniacs should be sent to travel in Maine. In Boston the same laws are in force just now but one goes into a small and sacred enclosure behind the bar and discover comforting black bottles handy. At Boston I saw Wynnams [?] splendid collection of stone weapons &c also Agassez Museum [1] and Harvard University. In the Boston Nat Hist Soc Museum I saw a stuffed hornbill which is undoubtedly the same as the specimen of a skull which you have at Oxford with a peculiar dense almost shelly [illegible] head and a short [insert] pointed [end insert] beak. You know the specimen I mean very well you did not know the name of the bird and I never felt certain whether there was not something pathological about the specimen The bird is Buceroturius galeatus Gm [male symbol] Sumatra. The Boston specimen is labelled as from De la Fresnayes collection. Many thanks for our many letters. I did not know though you thought that I did that my paper had been referred to Prof Huxley I hope he may look favorably on it. Please let me know its fate. I sent you the Carib hatchet in a parcel address to Wyndham forwarded in a box of plants to Kew. I hope to send you some more things soon. I will write to Wyndham about the Seissmometer [2] If anything is sent to the ship it is always best to send it through the Admiralty by writing to the Secretary of [illegible] Richards of the Hydrographic Office Letters will always be forwarded by the quickest route if addressed to care of old Richards. I will send you our dates from Bermuda. I sent you a newspaper yesterday in which the Oxford Professors salaries are given in dollars and the large sum absorbed by the Divinity Profs is put forth. I suppose it is copied from some home paper. A man named De Cortez Dr Cyrio A P De Cortez a physician said to be a graduate of Oxford committed suicide yesterday at Brooklyn. Perhaps you may have heard of him before. I fear we shall not fall in with the Flying Squadron I have a friend in it besides Mr Prickett whom I should very much have liked to have met. I wont inflict any more on your now so with kind regards to Mrs Rolleston & yourself
Believe me
yours truly
HN Moseley
We killed 14 goats on our shooting excursion. My express rifle knocked them down so pat that I thought as they disappeared behind the rocks that I was missing them every shot. On going up we suddenly discovered the ground strewn with dead. I did not mean to shoot more than one. There was great chaff on board those not in the party say the goats were tame
[1] Louis Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology, at Harvard
[2] Seismometers are instruments that measure motions of the ground
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HMS Challenger
St Vincent
C. Verdes
August 3 1873
Dear Dr Rolleston
I just write a line to remind you of my existence and in hopes you may send me a short note to Malia [?] An outward bound mail has just come in with the news of the death of your old friend the Soapy one [1]. He did not die “the common death of all men” but I am sure that protestant enough to pronounce his fate without doubt a judgement. His neck apparently gave way before his head though I suppose both were pretty tough. This is a wonderfully bare volcanic island nothing but red hills of scoria and plains of glaring sand. I have been stumping it all about and climbing the hills after plants and have got more than 100 species I mean to employ my whole time ashore [insert] in [end insert] collecting plants because I am left alone and have this to myself. There are splendid fishs [sic] here Dactylopterus 18 inches long How I wish I could [insert] get Robertson to [end insert] send you one to make a skeleton of [insert] five we have got [end insert] but they are of course all bottled up and I dont much like asking for one. I enjoy going after the plants in ragged clothes and going to sleep on the beach in front of the town till it is convenient for a boat to take me off to the ship. The glory of the cruise in the zoological way will certainly fall on Suhm It is very trying having such a man to cut me out in everything He will cut out W.J. altogether Are they going to take my paper at the Royal Soc? We are looking forward to 8 weeks ea [?] between this and Malia [?] but then we shall have St Pauls rocks & I Nortiona [?] on the way. Please give my kind regards to Mrs Rolleston & believe me yours truly NH Moseley
[1] Samuel Wilberforce who died 19 July 1873
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Wynberg
near Cape Town
Nov 5. 1873
Dear Dr Rolleston
I have dropped on Peripatus here & worked it out for the Royal Soc. I shall send the paper before we leave here. Peripatus is a myrnapd has trachea like Julus is not hermaphrodite but has males & females is vivparous and has a development like myriapods No [illegible] metamorphosis. The horny paws are developed from the first pair of legs of the embryo which turn ish [?] The jaws are nothing but a modified pair of the animals foot hooks. I cant think how anyone who ever saw the foot nooks of Peripatus could have thought the best an am... Quatrefages long ago said the beast was a sort of myriapod The muscles are [illegible] & he so called testes of Bube are slime glands = silk glands of caterpillars & poison glands myriapods. From these the animal shoots out fine threads of an extraordinarily sticky fluid which forms mesh works like spiders web & entangles the animals enemies. It can shoot at least six inches. I have been scouring the country for curios for Oxford. I have got a skull of Ziphuis Layardii for you. It was sticking up in the sand at Cape Point no lower jaw. All the neck vertebrae. I have also an apes skull found by me in a cave some stones of the kitchen midden people &c [1] I am at an hotel here in Wynberg a pleasant suburb or rather small village working at Peripatus In the hotel is a Captain Rolleston an Irish relation of yours who says he is the head of the family. I have worked him about bushmen implements &c & he promises to get them for you. He has shot or seen shot plenty of bushmen but never kept any. I took him off to the Challenger to dine yesterday. He got squiffy and when we came ashore took a header out of the gig into the dock instead of on to the jetty. I hunted him out & took him to his hotel. he seems a capital fellow but very Irish. He is off to the diggings again this morning. After I left him I went to the Governors ball given in honor [sic] of the Challenger and got as drunk as a fiddler myself and am now hardly sober again this morning so you will understand how any incongruities in this letter are to be accounted for. I am anxious to here [sic hear] whether I did anything absurd or indecent at the ball I only found out I was screwed when I got into the air. I have got Dr B...’s Bushman to make a stone arrowhead & watched him do it. I shall send the the [sic] arrow head and the sharp stone he used [insert] as an instrument [end insert] to make it with Please give my kind regards to Mrs Rolleston
yours truly
HN Moseley
[1] There are quite a few objects that have come to the Pitt Rivers Museum associated with kitchen middens and Moseley, but not from South Africa, from Morocco, Chile, and Australia
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Write to John McKellar Esq Cape Point an Ostrich farmer & great friend of mine & send him official notice of [insert] Cape Town office [end insert] having received the skull of Ziphius Layardii. He gave it me for Oxford. He is a capital fellow & of course derisible culture. I got also the Cynocephalus & Otaria skulls at his place & he owns all the kitchen middens as well as the actual Cape of Good Hope.
HMS Challenger
Dec 17 1873
Dear Prof Rolleston
A box will reach you from the Admiralty in which are a skull of Ziphysus Layardii skull of a [illegible] and skull of a fur seal some stone implements of the Cape Mither [?] [illegible] people and a lot of rock specimens. The latter are for Wyndham. I have notes about them but have let matters run so late that I cannot send them now. They are of little use without the notes therefore have each kept with its paper carefully so as to be able to refer to the notes which will be sent from Australia. The stone &c are really valuable I have accurate notes about them all. I have today put a lower jaw of Ziphysus Layardii with the tusks. I hope you will get them I will do my best. We are off tomorrow at 8 AM Write of Melbourne to reach up to end of March. To Sydney to reach up to middle of May Sydney to be forwarded up to middle of June If you can arrange with Huxley to get the Radcliffe library man look over the proofs of my peripatus paper. [1] I will be greatly obliged My uncle will pay. Peripatus is a Probracheate & the father of all [illegible] Yours in great haste
HN Moseley
[1] On the Structure and Development of Peripatus capensis. Moseley, H Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (1854-1905). 1873-01-01. 22:344–350
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HMS Challenger
Hongkong Jany 1 74
Dear Dr Rolleston
I received a day or two ago your letter written in your sisters sick chamber. I hope indeed that your sister made a satisfactory recovery. I have been out of sorts during our whole stay at Canton. I got ulcerated legs down in the tropics & though we have been here six weeks the wounds are only just healed after a course of tonics. We are I have done no work here at all. We start for the Tropics Manilla the Carolines &c tomorrow and will within the next 48 hours be sweating as confoundedly as we are now [illegible]. I am regularly bunged up with a cold. The weather is most trying here the T dropping 30 [degrees] or 40 [degrees] in a day. A poor Caffre boy whom we brought with us from the Cape as servant in the laboratory is I am sorry to say dying of consumption in the Hospital. We had extremely cold weather on first coming in here & that after the extreme heat of Manilla brought matters to a climax.
Two copies of a Chinese work on Natural History will reach you by Book post. The book with the illustrations is [insert] a reprint of [end insert] a very ancient work. the commentary contained in the other two volumes are more modern having been printed by order of government One of the copies of the book has a translation of the explanation of the figures written in you can have this translation copied into the other or clean copy which I hope you will accept & then send the other copy to my mother. Indian ink must be used unless the book be interleaved. Common ink runs. You will find much that is interesting from classical antiquarian & scientific point of view. You will find the Cydria [insert] figures giants cyclops [end insert] sea serpent mentioned &c the Airios [?] and curiously enough A figure of a bird & rat that live in the same hole together (Can Cyrosay exist in the China as on the prairies?) From a religious point of view you will find several figures are interesting. There is the Seraphim looking black enough in the fact to have been continually [illegible] like our own and as in china everything is in reverse of what it is at home there the cherabim with a well developed bottom and no head. there is also one great beast full of eyes before [illegible] behind What an opening there will be for some cute naturalist who may manage to doge [?] the parsons & get into trouble for a paper on the structure & affinities of that wonderful beat. It is almost worth while trying to get in one self for such a chance the three companions might be taken afterwards in detail. I fear however that the brutes might turn out a sell and the eyed one prove to be only a bloated & imaginative argus pheasant after all. not allied to [illegible] as I formerly supposed & I think the book will amuse you. There
There will also reach you an Aru Island bird of Paradise one of several which I got at Dobbo. If you dont want it for other purposes it might be for the young ladies hats if Mrs Rolleston possibly approved of such decoration.
Very many thanks for taking so much bother about my Royal Soc papers. I was very glad to hear that the peripatus paper was going into the [illegible] Trans I heard it was going to the Linnean I thought I must have been very far out in my allowance for personal bias in favour of my own work in my estimate of the worth of the paper. You talk of my being put up for the R Soc “this year” ?1874 or 1875. of course 1874 is now impossible I should of course be extremely glad to be put up and think the present time the best but I thought the matter could not be well arranged unless I were in England. Thwaites told me when I was in Ceylon that I might use his name as one of my supporters in case of my putting up for the Soc. Hooker would I am sure help me & Oliver & Berkeley probably Clifton might perhaps give his name & possibly Darwin because of my paper in the Academy. Please let me know when you write to Japan whether I shall write to all these people I hope I may get a copy of my papers in Japan. I always get speedily anything sent to the Admiralty for me. Of course we all wanted universally to tie off with [2 words illegible] to the Arctic regions I was within an ace of telegraphing to Dr Hooker on the chance of going but the tremendous cost weighed against the minuteness of the chance of success deterred me. Possibly a second expedition to dig out the present one will be starting by the time we get back.
I have been privately buying up here & at Canton the tertiary fossil mammalian teeth used by the Chinese in medicine under the name of dragons teeth & bones. I have looked over the stores of all the Hong Kong druggists but the teeth are sold by the ounce & cost rather too much for me. I have got the teeth of about five animals I think a tigery large ruminant (elk?) horse like beast [insert] like beast [sic][end insert] & camel? I cant tell anything much about the teeth without being able to compare them. Of course the Chinese pound them up. I saw a notice of their existence & commercial use in a review in the Lancet some time ago in a translation of a [illegible] work on Materia Medica There is also a note about the bones in the Chinese Repository I only mention in circumstance of my having the teeth in order that should you come across any papers on these teeth of or [illegible] you should note it for me. I have been to Canton & had a real Chinese dinner where nothing but chop sticks were allowed to eating with [sic] and every man had a pair of prostitutes painted bright mageta [sic magenta] colour sitting close behind him during the entire performance & getting nothing to east but occasionally a glass of some shot to drink. Such are the manners & customs at a real first chop Chinese feed. One has to drink no beef taps [?] with all the girls all round separately & the girl never puts her cup to her lips before her pledger has drained his. After The actual repast lasted about three hours & there was birds nest soup & sharks fin [insert] fish maws [end insert] & all the regular Chinese delicacies including to my astonishment a fungus of ... groting [sic - ?growing] out of a caterpillar just like the well known N Zealand affairs. There were of lot of these swimming in a dish of which I partook. I secured some & sent them to Berkeley. These as well of as nearly all the stock Chinese delicacies birds nests tripang (Malay = sea m virile) sharks fins &c are so diligently sought by Chinese & paid for at such an enormous price because they are reputed aphrodisiacs of great power & hence absolutely necessary [missing word - at?] a feast which are held in brothels or flower boats which are floating brothels The whole performance connected with the dinner lasted from 6.30 to 12 PM & then we had a contented ourselves with only the first course of the dinner. I had considerable headache bellyache & sleeplessness during the night but am uncertain whether this was to be ascribed to the strange food the quantity of samshoo [?] the [next section unreadable as written in faded ink with much brighter ink on other side of flimsy paper] ... of [illegible] please remember me to all my friends in Oxford. We are over more than half the commission now and will be homeward bound when we leave Japan. Please give my kind regards to Mrs Rolleston & accept the same from
yours truly
HN Moseley
PS A New Guinea drum similar to the one described in [illegible] voyage of the Fly or in the voyage of the Beagle I forget which was got from a Murray Island craft at Cape York Australia. [1] This drum a specimen of Fijian pottery for comparison with Anglo saxon ware &c [2] I have sent in a box to my uncle at 32 Cumberland Terrace Regents Park. My Uncle will advise you of the arrival of the box & then you can call at your convenience & take them. you will see some [insert] savages [end insert] weapons &c which form the rest of the content of the box but which I want to keep at present
[1] This is 1903.129.20
[2] This is 1887.1.686
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I am sick & tired of reclining sub tequisis eucalypti and anxiously awaiting our long delayed departure for N Zealand. Many thanks for your promise to foster my peripatus paper, my uncle will supply funds for copying
June 5 1874
Dear Dr Rolleston
Just a line by this mail to say that Prof Liversidge Professor of Geology at the Sydney University [1] will almost certainly send you very shortly a specimen of Ceratodus Posteru in spirit. You must write of course when it comes and offer to pay expenses of carriage &c but I think from what Liversidge says that he will wish to bear these himself. He is constantly in communication with Queensland He is a Cambridge [illegible, possibly stules?] man & school of mines pupil & a very good fellow. You might arrange extensive swops with him or rather present things [insert] some of [end insert] your European anatomical things eg to the University & I am sure you could do well in that way. The university museum is apart & distinct from Krefts establishment “The Sydney Museum” and is educational in its character like yours somewhat as opposed to Westwoods. [2] Another man who will I am sure help you is a very good old fellow named Dr George Bennett [3] who first investigated the habits of Druithoryuchus & sent home [illegible] specimens, send home the young of Echidna, first found Nautilus pompilius in the flesh & sent the specimen to Owen. Is constantly sending home all sorts of fossil marsupials &c & living Didinuaculius &c He has offered to assist the museum if you will let him know about what you want. No doubt you might get [insert] restored [end insert] Diprotodon casts [insert] eg [end insert] or photos of natives &c & lots of other things in spirit &c. Old Bennett is author of the Wanderings of a Naturalist of which book he is very vain & to which he constantly refers as The Wanderings. he has also published the Naturalist in Australia with account of Oriuthong incluis &c besides various other papers on all sorts of subjects including Botany. An allusion to any of his writings touches his heart. He really has done a great deal for science & spares no expense in getting things for museums &c He has no collections of his own except of one a fine one of scientific books & sends all his things to places where they will be best made use of.
I was dining at the Australian club the other day at a dinner given to the Challenger. I was introduced to your [insert] Australian [end insert] cousin after the dinner. He is gray but in the most excellent health & with a somewhat haughty bearing. He said he had never met you but that you had written to him to get him skulls of black fellows from Queensland He seemed to think that you must have hardly been in earnest as the skulls could not be of much value but as he said he knew a cave full of bones and easily accessible I laid before him at once with what extended benefit to the world at large the placing of these remains of these interesting savages in your hands must necessarily be connected. I had plenty of liquor on board and I am sure put the matter forcibly. I will write again next mail & now will merely fill up the paper. I hope you will write as often as you can. You can hardly conceive how welcome your letters are after a long interval without communication with any intellectual individual who cares a bit for one. I went into the Parliament here the night before last. There was a great debate about the liberation [insert] by the Goubinor [sic] [end insert] of Gardiner the most dangerous & successful bushranger ever known in the colony. I was surprized to see no spittoons & no provisions for whittling. The interest of the debate lay in the grotes [?] visitation of the aspirate and violent personal abuse. The prime minister Parkes was trying to defend the action of the Governor in the matter but with out the faintest success & his constant reference to the Ome Secretary & honorable member of the Ouse made one feel almost uncomfortable. I fancy from what I have seen & heard that the Government of NSW is in a very rotten state. There are numbers of overpaid officials & subordinates who hang together to a man & have everything under control. I shall write a very little about Sydney to my mother & you will see it so I shall now stop merely saying that I put you up three specimens of Trigonia from Pt Jackson dredged by myself. They are in great request to be mounted whole as earrings bracelets pins &c Kind regards to Mrs R yours truly HN Moseley
[1] Archibald Liversidge (1846-1927) he became Professor in 1874
[2] Gerard Kreft, Curator Sydney Museum until 1874 when he seems to have been sacked by the Trustees ?
[3] George Bennett (1804-1893) medical practitioner and naturalist, see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bennett-george-1770
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HMS Challenger
off the [illegible]
July 13 1874
Dear Dr Rolleston
I commence this note & will finish at Sydney [insert] Fiji [end insert] The enclosed a rough copy of a letter which I have sent to a Mr Du Faur of Sydney [1] a very good fellow and somewhat an enthusiast whose acquaintance I made at Sydney. For many reasons Mr Du Faur wishes in the event of his getting good things from his expedition (the thing is almost entirely done at his expense) to have them investigated and described & reported on from home. If the Sydney people got hold of the things they would do them badly & bag all the credit. I suggested your establishment & he was delighted. I hope the letter is all right. I have done my best. The only thing is dont be too sanguine. Hume [2] as perhaps you have heard has come back form the bush after a long absence and said that he has discovered Leichardts remains & told wonderful stories about the habits of the blacks. how eg after a certain age the males have a perforation made from the rectum into the urethra to ensure abortive intercourse &c &c. Du Faur has cross questioned Hume and has been taking down his story for a long time. Many persons in Sydney however [illegible] the majority say that Hume is a swindler. It is certain that he was not long ago a convict but then that is nothing in Sydney. However the opposition say that Hume only wants powder and his rifle & revolver and horse and that then he and his two companions will as soon as they get into the bush become bushrangers. Anyhow Du Faur has sent them off in full faith and I have sent him the letter to you at his request in chance of the thing turning up trumps. You will of course hear no more about the matter if Hume goes on the shoot.
A Dr Chisholm of Camden N S Wales a St Marys hospital man & evidently sharp fellow has promised to procure for me pregnant uteri of Phalaggist in China & harden them in cloronic [?] acid. I want to make sections &c As I shall not be at home he will send them to you. If so do you mind keeping them for me and sending Dr Chisholm a line in acknowledgement of receipt of the parcel. I shot hundreds of possums in NSW but could not get a single pregnant uterus though heaps of pouch young in all stages.
Kandara Aug 8 74
I have heard from Dr Hooker that my paper on Peripatus is to go to the Linnean. I have just come back from an eight days boat trip to Mbau to see King Thachamban whom we found reading his bible of which he is very found [sic fond] relishing no doubt especially the blood thirsty passages of the old text. He has parts of 3000 human bodies in him. He is a fine old fellow & was very inquisitive about the deep sea. We further went 35 miles up the great river of Vitu Levu [illegible] & got back here yesterday night to join the ship & only just in the time for the mail
your truly
HN Moseley
[1] Frederick Eccleston Du Faur (1832-1915) public servant and patron of exploration and arts. See http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/du-faur-frederick-eccleston-3448. ‘In 1874 he helped to finance the last expedition under Andrew Hume to ascertain the fate of Ludwig Leichhardt.’
[2] Andrew Hume ‘who had been released from prison on a charge of horse-stealing to substantiate his claim that a survivor of the expedition of 1848 led by Leichhardt was living with Aboriginals in north-west Australia.’ See http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ohea-timothy-4327
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NB Copy of Introductory letter
HMS Challenger
off the Kermadecs {?]
July 13 1874
Dear Dr Rolleston
I write this letter in order to introduce to you my friend Mr Du Faur of [insert] the N S Wales Survey Department [end insert] Sydney. Mr Du Faur is undertaking at his own expense the sending of an exploring expedition under an accomplished bushman of the name of Hume to North Western Australia and has given directions to the head of the expedition to send down to him at Sydney from time to time collections of weapons crania and other objects of Anthropological interest which may be obtained from the entirely wild tribes which will necessarily be encountered. Hume has been already amongst some of these tribes most of which have never before been visited by whiles and from his account it may be expected that the collection will be of extraordinary interest.
Mr Du Faur who will of course in the event of this expedition turning out a success publish an account of the various discoveries would wish to have a scientific report on the various collections [illegible] &c and would wish to send a duplicate series to England for that purpose. He proposes to send them to you for the Oxford Museum and I write this [insert] at his request [end insert] as an introduction to a letter from him. I am sure that you will be glad to receive specimens of such interest. Mr Du Faur will of course give further particulars in his own letter.
I need not say how much science owes to Mr Du Faur for thus taking up an exploring expedition at his private risk
I am yrs truly HN Moseley
[Enclosed with this letter is a photograph, full face portrait, of a man, on the back it reads Tiu Namosi King of one of the largest mountain tribes Viti Levu Fiji’ [suggesting Mosely sent Rolleston photos]
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I shall name the pelagonemc... after you if you approve after seeing his picture: I will send it next mail for the Any & Mag The paper is finished I think Tyndalls speech great rot The real question about religion seems to me to be as to what extent a religion founded on falsehood should be maintained for social & political purposes & as to how it should be gradually eased down through a cloud of ...fication such as Matthew Arnold Literature & ... is to me at least
HMS Challenger
Hon Kong [sic]
Nov 25 1874
Dear Dr Rolleston
Many thanks for two letters of yours which have turned up here. I cant understand about my Peripatus paper being considered as merely of classifactory importance. You speak of my having triumphantly shown it to be an orthoropod but have you looked at the figures and realized the condition of the nervous system. The [insert] central [end insert] nerve cords area [insert] wide apart [end insert] are devoid of ganglia and in the condition in which they are to be found only in planarians and memertines. [?] I dont see how the beast The beast seems to me to be one of the few surviving ancient links between present large [insert] widely [end insert] separated groups such as amphionus I do not believe that this idea of mine as to the importance of the beast arises from prejudice in favour of my own work. I think Peripatus to be the ancestor of all tarcheata The close resemblance of it to lepidopterous larvae is most striking and the occurrence in it of trachea in the most rudimentary & imperfect condition [illegible] and here only in all tracheata arising from pores over the whole body surface is to me at least most significant. I am afraid I made my abstract too concise. I have no word of what happens about papers that go home except what I gather from your letters or occasionally from Dr Hookers. You write of the reference of my paper to the [illegible] ascertain in your last. I am terribly afraid that the paper may get put by for an indefinite period and not get printed for years. If it were sent to Siebold & Rolli... feschrift [?] it would get done in a couple of months. I have had no [insert] official [end insert] information about the fate of it since I sent it off from the safe a year ago. If you can manage to give it a shove on and let me know who has got it & what is to be done with it I shall be extremely grateful. I have got the eggs [insert][illegible][end insert] of the N Zealand Planarian. They are as big as this [drawing] [illegible] and contain four fully formed young eyes & all complete. The [illegible] confound capsule of the land beetle is merely a specialisation of the one celled capsule of the land planarian. I have got Mamilla land planarian also. They are long and thin longer than this paper and differ in muscular arrangement from other [illegible] or Bipalium the longitudinal bundles of the cutaneous muscular system [insert] of B & A [?] [end insert] becoming enormously developed & thus becoming the principal longitudinal muscles of the body thus coming nearer the leech as far as I remember. The N Zealand shows these characteristics in less degree but appears nearly allied to the S American as far as the muscles go. The generative organs are very like those of [illegible]. I have worked the beast out by sections. The water vascular system & nervous system puzzle me. There is nothing to represent the great pale spaces in R and B except a straggling light coloured irregular streak which appears to represent the nervous system only. I am almost beginning to think that the light area in [illegible] sections & [illegible] would have been nervous system only but I want very much to se my paper again I have forgotten so much about the matter. Lots of Germans are going in at land planarians & a russian has published on peripatus being a new species from Australia. I knew the beast must be there. I should much like to see the paper. It is quoted in Seucharts ... [illegible] I hope to send home papers on the N Zealand peripatus on Cape Australian & American &c planarians from here. Also a paper on Pelagonemertes a new [2 words illegible] with thick gelatinous body & ramified digestive system. I have got a lot of observations on colouring matters also but I get more & more lazy every day & begin to hanker after shore going life. I hope Hum... and the girls and Master William who would be described in the language I am now daily talking as “One piece bull child” are flourishing and that Mrs Rolleston is well. Please give my kind regards to Mrs R & accept the same from yours truly HN Moseley. I shot five [illegible] in one day at Au. We got no [illegible] in full plumage but plenty of young males & females I send my journal later on
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Yokohama
April 13 1875
Dear Dr Rolleston
I got a letter of yours here which told me that you had sent me copies of my papers on Bip... and Peripatus. The [illegible] ...chage] has not as yet turned up but I hope it will be in the next Admiralty boxes which are expected about the 20th. I am sure I am extremely indebted to you for the trouble you have taken about them. I am sending off a box to Kew by next mail with Admiralty Island plants I have put into a small package containing a stone headed adze from Humboldt Bay New Guinea [1] two spear heads of obsidian from the Admiralty islands [2] and an adze made of a terebra maculata also from the Admiralty Islands. [3] Next mail I will send you a full account of the Admiralty Islanders which I have not yet finished. It touches on many anatomical points so that I cannot send it to my mother. I send you with this a photo of an Admiralty Islander with the ovulum ovum on. The shell does not look so remarkable when worn as does the Humboldt Bay gourd. but it is curious enough. The obsidian headed spears are splendid things those I send you now are some of the worst. I will give you better when I can send them with more safety. The obsidian breaks like glass but must give a fearful wound as I thought when prowling after plants on the main island when I thought one might come at me from the bush perchance. I can tell you one pretty soon gets tired of real wild savages and the Anthropological pigeon is one that should be well paid in money or glory. The dirt smell constant yelling and bothering for [insert] one [end insert] for presents accompanied by dragging at ones arms to attract attention drives one half crazy and all this [insert] is [end insert] combined with the possibility of having to use your revolver at any minute. The natives go half wild when they see a store of trade gear in a boat and on one occasion I certainly thought we were going to have a rupture. At Humboldt Bay a native drew his bow on me and made signs he would kill me by placing his arrows just above the clavicle if I did not give him trade gear. The only thing to do was either to shoot him or go back to the ship. We had orders not to shoot unless in extremity so I went to we went back leaving a tin of gear in the natives possession which was dragged by them out of the boat. The man cannot have known the use of firearms for he saw we had plenty. The result was that the hasty exploration of the neighbourhood intended was given up and we went to sea. I have written a full account of the transaction to Dr Hooker. I have lost more than two stone in weight weighing now only 155 lbs and have got a beard of some length so am somewhat changed. I have been seedy all the cruise and have done very little. I have however found out an A1 thing about corals. Heliopora a stony coral supposed by Agassiz as one of the Milleporidae to be a [illegible] is in reality an a... [illegible] having [insert] only [end insert] eight [insert][illegible][end insert] septa [insert] instead of twelve [end insert] of which I think four are primary. I have worked the beast out though it is very difficult as are all stony corals. Tetra radiati corals thus are still existing and living and the rugore corals were acyonarians not hydroids They have been suspected of al.. affinities lately because of the existence of opercula in some (as calceola) Agassiz discovery of millefora being a hydroid has never been thoroughly accepted except by Americans. I went into the matter convinced that the milleforidol were not hydroids. I tried millefora at Bermuda but failed. (It is dense like limestone almost and must be decalcified three sectioned and in decalcification it crumbles much) As soon as I came across heliopora in which amongst milleporidae the polyps are largest. I tried that and found to my astonishment at once 8 septa & tentacles. The great distinction of rugosa now seems to be their introcalcinal germination I have found nothing of the sort.
The tubular c... of heliopora seemed to consist of aborted polyps some acting as water pores to the canal systems I have not been able to see Heliopora with tentacles expanded I wish I had Rollilens A ... to look at I have only summaries in the Jahresbericht I cannot write more about the matter now I have only just begun making drawings for a paper but I have got a lot of literature & jaw ready I hope to get the thing done on the voyage from here to Vancouvers Island.
I dont know what I shall do when I get home. I wish the Arctic Expedition had come off later I might have got on that. I was very near telegraphing to Dr Hooker to try and get off with Nares. Are there any appointments to be got in the fisheries commission I think that would suit me. I dont want to have teaching work I am not up to lecturing
Of course this place is charming Everyone likes Japan. even naval officers do. I have not been to Yeddo yet but one can go up in the morning by train in a hour and be back come back at night. There are plenty of trains and the return fare is about 1/6 and in 1859 or about then Commodore Perry could not [insert] even [end insert] land here at Yokohama without extreme difficulty. There are Japanese ironclads here manned & officered by Japanese and they send topmasts up & down smartly round the bugle calls and everything. 11 years ago they in full pride started a steamer which they had bought in the bay here and then could not stop the engines but had to go round and round in circle till an English engineer got on board and stopped the ship.
I have written [illegible] a long letter no doubt you will get some news from him. Please give my kind regards to Mrs Rolleston
Believe me
yours truly
HN Moseley
[1] I cannot find an object to match this description in the PRM
[2] These are 1887.1.656 and the other is apparently unlisted, it is possible it was returned to Moseley and later donated to the PRM by his wife after his death (there are several obsidian spearheads see 1915.25.58-63)
[3] This object is not listed as coming from Moseley from OUMNH to PRM. Possibly it is 1915.25.55 which appears to be the same sort of adze and which was given by his wife after his death
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[Undated Note to go with paper on peripatus, not transcribed]
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Undated Note on scrap of paper
Obtained at Betsy Cove Kerguebus [?] Pond Jany 1874 from the Harpooneer of the Emma Jane an American Whaling Schooner of about 80 tons. The carving is of a stone found in Heard Island & was cut by the Harpooneer with a knife. It represents the skinning of a sea elephant (Beachmaster or old uncle)
[This cannot be matched to an object in the PRM collections]
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April 6 [unknown year]
Dear Dr Rolleston
I am obliged to go to town about a considerable sum of money miscarried in going to my Australian brother. I come back tomorrow. Either WT is afraid of staying & meeting the terrible retribution which I cant help thinking his countrymen get in the [illegible ?west] world though all others escape or we have established a funk or shore life has softened him or Buchanan is jigging him hard. He has ordered Turner to disgorge and we shall have the whole set of Hawaiian things. The Deep Sea Corals also come to me at once.
Yours
HN Moseley
[Transcribed September/ October 2012 by AP]
