To George Bentham   July 1871

Melbourne bot. Garden

[After 18 July 1871]1

 

I am asked, dear Mr Bentham, by Mr Bernays, clerk of the Parliament of Queensland, to bring under your notice, that the Government of that Colony as yet did not receive the 15 copies of Vol. V of the Flora, to which they are entitled: "altho' their subscription has been duly paid" — No doubt the fault is with the publishing firm.

It was my intention to have sent an other box with specimens for vol. VI by one of the last clipperships, but meanwhile I have been called by the new Ministry to a seat on a Royal Commission for forest affairs and new industries, and this will leave me for some weeks or perhaps months no leisure for botanic work beyond such as the ordinary routine duties of the Department here bring with them. Still in a few months — at all events — they can be sent.2

With best regards

Ferd von Mueller

 

I am looking forward with intense interest to the new vol of genera.3

The letter is dated to July 1871 on the basis of its content. Charles Gavan Duffy formed a Ministry on 19 June 1871; M was appointed a Commissioner to report on the 'Introduction of branches of rural industry and useful foreign trees' on 18 July 1871 ( Victoria Government Gazette , 21 July 1871, p. 1147). Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5, was published in August 1870 (M to G. Bentham, 27 October 1870).

The letter is annotated in pencil '1870-71', presumably by an archivist when the MSS wete being sorted for binding.

Box 54 had been sent on 14 August 1869; box 55 was not despatched until 21 March 1872 (Notebook recording despatch of plants for Flora Australiensis, RB, MSS, M44, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne).
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83). vol. 2, part 1 was published in April 1873 (TL2).

Please cite as “FVM-71-07-00d,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/71-07-00d