22/7/76
Let me gratulate you, rev. and dear friend, to the happy choice, which the Council of the RS.1 has made, in including you among the 15 select for this year. The honor is all the greater, as you are, I think, the first, who since nearly a centurys foundation of N. S Wales will represent that great Colony in the Society, in which Sir Isaac Newton once presided.2
The honor ought to have been much earlier conferred on you, but in your overextreme modesty you never sought it til late in life. May you live still many years as an ornament of science among us.
Can you kindly tell me, whether the plate of the new veget fossil you discovered, did ever appear under Mr Wilkinsons care.3
Regardfully
Ferd. von Mueller
Royal Society of London. Clarke had been included on that year's list of candidates to be elected as members of the Society; he was formally elected on 1 June 1876 (see Home (2003)).
M's statement is not quite accurate. Phillip Parker King, born on Norfolk Island in 1791, became an officer in the Royal Navy and an eminent hydrographer. He was elected FRS in 1824, and subsequently lived in NSW from 1830 until his death in 1856.
Rhytidocaryon wilkinsoni; see M to W. Clarke, 10 April 1875, and B77.12.01, p. 12 and plate 1, figs. 1, 2 and 3.
MS black-edged; M's brother-in-law, Eduard Wehl, died on 11 February 1876. The transcription given in Moyal (2003), pp. 1124-5, differs from that given here. The purported extract given in Grainger (1982), pp. 247-8, bears little resemblance to the actual text of the letter.
Please cite as “FVM-76-07-22,” 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