To Ralph Tate   15 March 1884

Drouin,1 15/3/84.

 

The two excursions,2 of which you sent me an account,3 dear Prof. Tate, must have been to the highest degree interesting. The one reminds me vividly of a tour of mine to Villunga,4 during which I followed the Onkaparinga valley5 down through then widely uninhabited country, getting benighted without food and fire.

I will examine the Hydrocotyle6 more closely on my return. The stay here has done me very little good, as the locality is too cold for me, and the weather was rainy and boisterous on many days of my stay. If I do not get worse during the winter here (much colder than in Adelaide) I will in early spring make a tour to the S.A. borders from Lake Hindmarsh, there being now coach-lines from where the Railroads cease. I hope that the German Residents will have patriotism enough left, to protest against the alteration of the name of their village Grünthal.7 It is poor gratitude to those, who as early pioneer formed the settlement, and came on their own expense, to obliterate the records of their part of colonisation there on the geographic map. The German Members of Parlament should not allow this. The Giant Eucalyptus ought at Grünthal to be fenced and protected. Is the stem solid?

Let me offer my best felicitation to your 44th Birthday, and express a hope, that you will double that number of years in due time. Prof Chevreul of Paris lectures yet at the age of 98!

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

Hydrocotyle

 
1
Vic.
2
In November 1882 Tate went to Mt Gambier, and in January 1883 he went to Kangaroo Island, both SA; see Tate (1883), p. 35 and (1883a), p. 134.
3
Letter not found.
4
Willunga, SA?
5
M may be referring to his trip in the Onkaparinga Valley in November-December 1848. He was also in the region in August 1850.
6
See also M to R. Tate, 2 March 1884, in this edition as 84-03-02a.
7
The name Grünthal was retained until 1917 when, as part of the general wave of anti-German feeling aroused during the First World War, many German place-names in SA were given non-German names; Grünthal became Verdun.

Please cite as “FVM-84-03-15,” 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 7 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/84-03-15