Melbourne botanic Garden
14/7/63.
Sir
I have the honor to transmit to you the enclosed note, arrived by this months mail from Professor Dr Petermann of Gotha.1 The maps alluded to have as yet not arrived but will be forwarded to you whenever they are here received.
I have the honor to be,
Sir,
your most obedient and humble servant
Ferd. Mueller.
The honorable
the Surveyor General
of South Australia.2
The 'note' referred to is a letter from August Petermann to Goyder dated 16 May 1863, acknowledging receipt of maps of SA sent via M and announcing the sending in return, through M, of four maps prepared for the latest edition of Stieler's Atlas (of Australia; Southeast Australia; Western Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand; and the Fiji Islands) and a geological map of the province of Nelson, New Zealand. Petermann also requested copies of the charts and reports from the most recent surveying expeditions into the interior of SA.
On 21 July 1863 Goyder minuted: 'Forwarded for the information of the Hon. the Commr. The maps alluded to were sent officially & with the Commr's approval I will furnish that now required with a written report upon the subject. As this interchange of plans is of the utmost importance I sincerely trust that the Commr will authorise its continuance. — The plans sent from Gotha on arrival will be submitted to the Commr & afterwards deposited in this office for reference'.
The file includes a second letter from Petermann, dated 6 August 1863, that accompanied 'two little maps of Lake Eyre and the Region near Carpentaria Gulf, as constructed by me from the Diaries of Stuart, Landsborough, your own Report &c'. the National Library of Australia version of the Lake Eyre map is at http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-232431113; that of the region near the Gulf of Carpentaria at http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-232431606, but this was not issued with Petermann's Geographische mittheilungen until 1864 (Bliss (1884), p. 32).
Please cite as “FVM-63-07-14b,” 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