To Edward Ramsay   2 April 1875

2/4/75.

 

I will be happy, dear Mr Ramsay, to propose you at the R.G. & R.H.S. by next mail.1

It will be very pleasing to me, to help Palaeontology on further, from specimens on loan obtained from your Museum, but it would be well to let it stand over til July next, as then the new financial year commences here, and I really do not know, what the future position of the really ruined Department may be.

I find the greatest difficulty of carrying on any kind of work out of £300 a year and my salary with no buildings, and the working on fossils would involve additional expense for books &c, a heavy item (£150 a year) already. If you have any fossil fruits, then pray send them at once. The Coalfossil duplicates I would advise to send direct from the Museum to Dr Schimper of Strassburg, mentioning that it was done on my request. I presume you have a continental Agent, so that a safe and cheap transit could be secured. The German Consul would likely help in the transit. The prospect of obtaining alpine plants from New Guinea is quite fascinating. In the still continuing distress of the Department I could not afford either out of private or public means to send a collector

Always your regardful

Ferd von Mueller

 

If you wrote to Mr R Br Smyth, FGS, Secretary of Mines, he would send to your Museum the 2 publications by M'Coy & myself issued recently on fossils.2

1
Ramsay was not elected as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society until 1883, on the basis of a certificate signed by three British-based members of the Society, Howard Saunders, H. G. Seeley and Edward Harris. Membership records for the Royal Horticultural Soceity for this period do not survive.
2
Probably B74.13.07 and the first part of McCoy (1874-82), both issued by the Geological Survey of Victoria.

Please cite as “FVM-75-04-02,” 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 20 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/75-04-02