27 May 1863
My dear Dr Müeller
I am glad to learn that you are to have a hearing in regard to the arrangements as to the meteorites.1
I have sent back the Board's Report to the Chief Secretary with copies of Professor Maskelyne's application to myself & of my reply.
As you may not have a copy of the "Argus" of 5th December last with Mr Bruce's final letter, I enclose one which I have procured but which I shall be glad by & bye to have back again.2 I do not see in it the passage to which the Board refer declaring that he gives the meteorite to the museum here "reserving to the British Museum the power of claiming one half provided they would be at the expense of dividing it" I have read it however but hastily.
Believe me
yrs faithfully
(signed) Henry Barkly
Dr Müeller
See H. Barkly to M 22 May 1865.
In his letter to the Editor ('The Bruce Meteorite', Argus, 5 December 1862, p. 7), summarizing the history of the dispute about the fate of the meteorite he had purchased, James Bruce wrote:
On 3rd January last, Professor M'Coy … made a request for the Melbourne Museum. In my answer I inform him that "I had purchased it for the British Museum, but I would allow him one half provided the Melbourne Museum would be at the expense of removal; that the authorities of the British Museum be communicated with, and an offer made to them of one half, provided they would be at the expense of dividing it".
Bruce went on to say:
as, notwithstanding my request for on early decision, I did not receive any answer from Professor M'Coy until 4th February, I think I was fully justified in concluding he had considered my conditions not acceptable, when on the 31st January I finally handed it over to Dr. Mueller for presentation to the British Museum, according to my original intention.
Please cite as “FVM-63-05-27,” 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