From William Archer1    August 1861

 

[…]2

to publish a part of the Papers & Proceedgs includg the papers read before the Socy & the Proceedings during my Secretaryship. I will not ask you now, therefore, for any paper, though we may be glad of your assistce on the next occasion of publicn. Excuse this hurrried note, & believe me, with best wishes & regards,

Yours very sincerely

W. Archer.

 

P.S. Do you approve of the proposed work by Bentham on the Flora of Australia?3 Sir Wm Hooker & Dr Hooker have written about it. I will do nothing that will interefere with your plans.

WA.4

1
MS annotation by J. Hooker: 'to Dr Mueller'. The 'proposed work by Bentham' was described in a letter from G. Bentham to W. Hooker of 6 May 1861 (in this edition as M61-05-06) that had been sent to the Australian colonies by W. Hooker and received there before 24 July (see H. Barkly to W. Hooker, 24 July 1861[ in this edition as M61-07-24]). When Archer wrote the present letter to M, he apparently did not know of M's decision to collaborate with Bentham (see M to W. Hooker, 23 July 1861), The letter is dated to August 1861 as the latest it is likely to have been written as Archer wound up his Secretaryship of the Royal Society of Tasmania, which he resigned in that month (see W. Archer to J. Hooker, 20 February 1862; RBG Kew, Kew Correspondence, Directors' Letters vol. 76, Australian and Pacific letters 1859-65, letter No. 2). The fragment now at Kew was probably one of the items that M enclosed with his letter to W. Hooker of 24 August 1861 (in this edition as 61-08-24a).
2
An unknown amount of text missing.
3
i.e. Benthem (1863-78).
4
In his letter of 20 February 1862 to W. Hooker, Archer wrote: 'I regretted very much, my dear Sir William, that I was unable to advance the object that Bentham had in view as regards the Flora of Australia generally. I found that, though I believe Bentham, or Dr Hooker, is the fittest man to work out the whole subject of Australian Botany, I could not bring myself to ignore Mueller on his own ground, — & as a brother Australian, — now that I am here. In London I could more easily take the proper view of the matter; but here — right or wrong — I must own & yield to my bias.'

Please cite as “FVM-61-08-00b,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 10 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/61-08-00b