Melbourne,
12/8/76.
W.H. Odgers Esqr,
Undersecretary.
Sir
I have the honor to enquire, whether the hon. the Chief Secretary will be pleased to arrange with the hon. the Minister of Mines, that through Mr M'Lellans Department a small map may be issued, which could be placed against the title-page of my School-Flora. For this purpose the Mines Department has facilities, which I do not enjoy in my establishment, and Mr M'Lellan is sure to be willing to aid me thus far.
The map would require to be slightly smaller than the one transmitted herewith;1 it would need to be complete up to date; it should be correct in detail (Mt Buller for instance being placed wrongly on the accompanying map;) but no necessity exists, to have the names and limits of the counties on it, nor need the map to be colored
I have the honor to be,
Sir, your obedient
Ferd. von Mueller.2
On 15 August 1876 the Chief Secretary, J. MacPherson, minuted: 'Perhaps the Mines dept will inform me if facilities exist there for the performance of such work and if it will be undertaken without inconvenience I should have thought the Lands dept the most appropriate for such work'. The Minister of Mines, W. McLellan, replied on 28 August: 'Enquiries have been made in this matter, and it is considered that the map should be engraved on copper. The Lands Department employ the only officers who can undertake such work, and it is suggested that the engraving might be done at the Lands Office, and that the maps might be subsequently printed by contract.'
On 22 November, on a page of Rough Proof that had been sent to him, MacPherson wrote to the Government Printer, J. Ferres: 'As a work for the use of our State School children such a work as this represents would be of little or no value — & from that point of view it is needless to proceed with it' (K76/13910, unit 883, VPRS 3991, PROV). From the proof, it is evident that the proposed work was very different in character from the educational text M published a year later, namely B77.13.07. The work here proposed was never published. M subsequently used the material that had been typeset in a different work, namely B79.13.08.
On 30 November Odgers noted: 'The C.S. [Chief Secretary] has stopped the printing of the book'.
Please cite as “FVM-76-08-12,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/76-08-12