From Ferdinand von Mueller to William Odgers   6 Dec 1873

Melbourne

6/12/73.

Sir,

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday,¹ and beg in reply to inform you, that in accordance with the request of the hon. the Chief Secretary I shall cause to be removed from the storehouse of the Laboratory in the Domain all the collections and raw material, yet kept there for the continuation of intended laboratory work; but as several cartloads of articles will have to be removed, it will be several days before they can all be cleared out, when the keys can be sent to the Lands-Department. As stated before, there is no space whatever left in the only museum-room, that being now the only building left me, to locate any of these articles, but a friend² in South Yarra has in this emergency kindly placed at my disposal the necessary space for storage, until an other locality can be found for these Laboratory articles. The plants for the intended education collections, seized on in the Laboratory (in the reserve domain) while there under preparation and removed to the botanic Garden, have not yet been restored to me.

I have the honor to be,

Sir, your most obedient servant

Ferd. von Mueller.

W. H. Odgers Esqr. &c &c &c

Undersecretary