Cranbourne
10 p.m. Feb. 13th 1862
Dear Sir
I have just received your letter of 10th1 with enclosures You will see by the letter I sent to Mr Heyne yesterday2 that I have placed the meteorite wholely at your disposal — of course there is a wish expressed that one half may be retained for the National Museum but I certainly think that Prof. M'Coy has forfited his claim on it I think I was quite justified in thinking my terms were not acceptable & even now he gives no guarrantee that it will be divided however I leave the matter entirely in your hands3 would it not be as well (even if you agree to let Prof M'Coy have one half) to send it home to the Exhibition & get it afterwards cut in two as there are greater facilities at home than here for getting such a job done.
I am
Dear Sir
Yours faithfully
J. Bruce
Dr F. Mueller
Botanic Gardens
Melbourne
Letter not found.
Letter not found
See J. Bruce to F. McCoy, 9 February 1862 (in this edition as M62-02-09), in which Bruce explains that when McCoy failed to respond to his letter offering half the meteorite to the National Museum on certain conditions, he had 'naturaly concluded' that McCoy found the conditions unacceptable and so had promised the meteorite to the British Museum instead. Bruce also wrote to Alfred Selwyn on 10 March 1862, pointing out that he had always favoured division of the meteorite, but that he now felt that no action should be taken until advice had been received from the British Museum (Natural History Museum, London, Mineralogy Keeper's archives, Meteorite letters A-G (Cranbourne)). See also Lucas et al. (1994).
For a copy of this letter see Natural History Museum, London, Mineralogy Keeper's acrchives, Meteorite letters A-G (Cranbourne).
Please cite as “FVM-62-02-13a,” 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