27/8/83.
I have not written to you for a long time, dear Mr Carruthers, and ought to have done something for your grand institution ere this; but I am still in arrear with much of my Department’s work since the Melbourne Exhibition,1 which taxed my time as one of the Commissioners and in three professional juries very much. This year I had again to give some aid for Victoria being represented in the Exhibitions of Amsterdam and of Calcutta.2 So I have not even been able to do justice to my official work in all instances. For Calcutta and Amsterdam I had prepared “wood-books”, a pattern of which I beg to send you by this post.3 It is a cheaper and more desirable form of showing wood samples than that adopted by me for the second London Exhibition 20 years ago,4 when for the first time woodbooks were designed by me.
Probably you see Sir Henry Barkly often, as that enlightened Gentleman lives near you in Bina-Gardens.5
I hope you will support the Rev. Jul. Tenisons Woods election into the R.S., this or rather next year.6
The second decade of veg. fossils,7 finished more than a year ago, has not yet appeared owing mainly to the fire, which consumed part of the Governm Printing Establishment last year.8
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
You can have a set of Mr Woods plants when they come from India.9
Kind regards to Prof Owen. I alluded to him specially in the last meeting of the Victorian Branch of the British Medical Association.10
Please cite as “FVM-83-08-27,” 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 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/83-08-27