Melbourne bot. Garden
20/12/62
My dear Sir William.
Your very kind letter of the 27. Octob.1 announces to my intense gratification, that our vegetable products of the expedition2 will not be scattered but will find a permanent and most desired place at your noble institutions at Kew. This fact fulfilles not only my own wish, but is an encouragement also to complete in course of events this collection, which indeed may be vastly increased yet in variety of objects.
To accomplish this my occasional journeys as well as the cooperation of friends will afford opportunities. It is highly pleasing to hear, that the Imperial Government has provided under your increasing call such excellent accomodation to the Colonial vegetable products at Kew.3
But what has given me the deepest emotions of pleasure in your last letter, is the delightful announcement of the almost complete restoration of your health.
May providence grant you its uninterrupted continuance for very many years! The great explorer J. Macd. Stuart has returned to Adelaide after accomplishing the task of establishing a watered traversable route from Spencers Gulf to the coast of Arnhems Land.4 There is no doubt, that his botanical collections will be placed in my hands, since I have been entrusted with the examination of whatever he brought back from any of his previous exploits.5
Having now seen so much of the vegetation of the interior of this continent, any new collections prove to me exceedingly interesting — I proceed within a few days to some untrotten parts of the Austral Alps & will secure seeds & specimens there for Kew.
Ever with the most sincere attachment & gratitude, very dear Sir William,
yours
Ferd. Mueller
Letter not found.
exhibition?
The colonial timbers, cabinet and furniture woods from the International Exhibition, 1862, were housed in the Orangery at Kew Gardens after the living collections previously housed there were transferred to the new Temperate House in 1863. In about 1960 the timber was removed from the Orangery; what remained after a thorough weeding of the exhibits was displayed or stored in one or other of the museums at Kew (Desmond, 1995, passim).
Stuart's expedition, from December 1861 to November 1862, was South Australia's attempt to be first to cross Australia from South to North, in competition with Victoria's tragic Burke and Wills Exploring Expedition, 1860-1. Stuart reached the North coast five months after Burke and Wills reached the Gulf of Carpentaria, but then in contrast to Burke brought his party home safely. See Threadgill (1922), pp. 57-63.
See B60.06.01, B63.05.01, B64.13.05.
MS annotation by W. Hooker: 'With a copy of the journal of Landsborough's Expedn'.
Please cite as “FVM-62-12-20,” 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