Melbourne, Botanical Gardens.
February 2nd, 1869.
From the enclosed note you will perceive, dear Mr. Wintle, that Prof. M'Coy determines your vegetable impression as a new one.1 I trust that you will thus still further be encouraged to continue your intelligent and zealous search.2 I have received the original back from the Professor, but as unusual interest is attached to it, I venture to ask whether it would not be best to locate it in the grand series of fossils here in our Museum, I therefore retain the specimen until I learn your decision on this subject.
With regardful
Salutation,
FERD. VON MUELLER.
S H. Wintle, Esq.
3The Professor informs me now that the whole subject of your interesting discovery will be early brought before our Royal Society,4 and I am now delighted to observe from your last communication that you uncovered a fine bed of these fossils, and that thus you are likely to find concomitant species which would shed still more light on the age of these organic deposits.
Note not found, but it was evidently read to the meeting of the Royal Society of Tasmania at its meeting of 9 March 1869 (Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania for 1869 (1870), p. 2).
Wintle sent more specimens, commenting in his letter to the editor:
The fossil in question being desired for the National Museum of Victoria, I had no alternative but to ascend the mountain again and try to find a duplicate. After a prolonged and laborious search I was fortunate enough to obtain three good specimens of the same, and some fragments. These I forwarded to Melbourne (with the exception of one which I retained for our own Museum) for Professor M'Coy to make choice of.
The following paragraph is introduced by 'In a subsequent communication on this subject the Baron observes:'
The paragraph probably came from a letter in response to Wintle's sending additional specimens, which may have been sent a few days before the suite of fossils from another area near Hobart sent with S. Wintle to M, 22 February 1869 (in this edition as 69-02-22b).
No evidence has been found that McCoy discussed these fossils at the Royal Society of Victoria, nor has any published description of Endogenophyllites wellingtonensis been found.
Letter not found. The text given here (B69.02.04) is in a letter to the editor of the Mercury (Hobart), 18 March 1869, p. 2 (Wintle (1869)). Wintle reports having found a fossil new to him on Mount Wellington and goes on to introduce M's letter as follows:
Upon Baron Von Müeller recently paying a visit to this colony, I submitted the fossil to him. At a glance he saw its important and interesting character, and generously proposed to take it to Victoria on his return, and lay it before Professor McCoy, the highest authority on palaeontology in Australia. The professor pronounced it at once to be entirely new, and of the greatest interest and scientific importance, and named it Endogenophyllites wellingtonensis, (McCoy), but at the same time said that by itself it was not sufficient as a palaeontological test to decide the age of the beds from which it came, without some other fossil from the same source. The illustrious botanist having granted me permission to make what use of his communication I may think proper, I cannot do better than lay a copy of it before your readers, as an earnest of the value which these apparently simple organic remains possess:
Please cite as “FVM-69-02-02a,” 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