To August Petermann1    25 December 1866

Weihnacht 1866

 

Ich danke Ihnen, verehrter Herr, für die schöne Karte Deutschlands, welche die wunderbare Umgestaltung Deutschlands zeigt.

Das Journal M'Intyres wird Ihnen neue Beiträge für die Land Karte Australiens geben. Möchten Sie so freundlich sein einen der noch unbenannt gebliebenen Flüsse nach Mrs Douglas zu benennen, welche Secretair des Damen Committees in Brisbane ist u einen andern nach Dr Sonder in Hamburg. Es steht Ihnen frei (vielleicht nach Quatrefages, Brogniart, Baillon, Graefe, Koelliker, Liebig, Brewster, Lytton u einigen andern Gelehrten den Rest der Localitäten zu benennen) da ich genug offen liess.

Mt Martins ist Mount Martius zu nennen nach unserm Münchner Heroen. Darf ich um ein paar Copien bitten einer solchen neuen Karte. Ich denke Ihnen auch bald Dr Lissas neuen erfolgreichen Zug als Karte senden zu können.

Mit Verehrung der Ihre

Ferd Mueller

 

2 Mount Martins sollte Mount Martius heissen. Ich nannte ihn zu Ehren des grossen Brasil Reisenden.

 
 
 

Christmas 1866.

 

I thank you, esteemed Sir, for the beautiful map of Germany, showing the wonderful reshaping of Germany.3

McIntyre's diary4 will provide you with new contributions for the map of Australia. Would you please be so kind as to name one of the until now still unknown rivers after Mrs Douglas, who is the Secretary of the Ladies' Committee in Brisbane,5 and another after Dr Sonder in Hamburg.6 You are free to name the rest of the localities (perhaps after Quatrefages, Brogniart,7 Baillon, Graefe,8 Koelliker, Liebig, Brewster, Lytton), as I left sufficient open.

Mt Martins is to be called Mt Martius after our Munich hero.9 May I ask for a few copies of such a new map? I think I can soon send you also De Lissa's successful journey on a map.10

Respectfully your

Ferd. Mueller.

 

Mount Martins should be Mount Martius. I named it in honour of the great traveller in Brazil.

 
1
MS annotation by Petermann: 'Erh. 18 Febr. 1867.' [Received 18 February 1867.] For a published version of this letter see Voigt (1996) pp. 82-3.
2
Mount Martins … Reisenden is written on a small note found enclosed with the letter.
3
Following the war between Prussia and Austria.
4
Duncan McIntyre’s journal was published in the Melbourne Age, 23 November and 1 December 1866; a German translation was published by Petermann in Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes' geographischer Anstalt, vol. 13, 1867, pp. 447-54.
5
Ladies' Leichhardt Search Expedition Committee, 1865-6. Evidently daughter committees had been formed in other Australian cities.
6
There are four Douglas Creeks in Qld but no feature carrying Sonder’s name.
7
Brongniart?
8
Graeffe?
9
M proposed the name Mt Martius for a mountain in WA; see M to C. von Martius, 25 December 1866 (in this edition as 65-12-25e). It appears that Petermann had called the feature Mt Martins on his map in error. Neither name appears on modern maps.
10
The surveyor E. A Delisser explored and named the Nullarbor Plain between Fowler’s Bay, SA, and Eucla, WA, in1865 and 1866.

Please cite as “FVM-66-12-25h,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/66-12-25h