To John Buchanan   3 November 1885

3/11/85

 

Since some time do I owe you, dear Mr Buchanan, an answer to your kind letter;1 the correspondence has grown quite over my head; indeed I often wished the day had 48 instead of 24 hours, or that life was to each of us twice as long as it is. This year the extrawork for the London Exhibition,2 New Guinea Exploration3 and industrial culture4 has been enormous.

Let me hope, after your many years toil you can enjoy on a fair competency and in serenity the rest of your life, which I hope will be to you a long and joyful one. Your help as a naturalist and artist will be very much missed in the Wellington Department.

Would you allow me, to ask you privately the question, whether the Auckland and Campbell islands are permanently inhabited by any one; also whether on Macquarie and Emerald Island5 any landing can be effected, or if they have any safe harbours?

Why I ask the question, and why I ask it in confidence I will explain. As President of the Geographic Society here I have in 3 or 4 weeks to give my annual adress, in which I wish to refer to antarctic exploration also. If this question was much talked of, in all probability articles on the subject would appear in the local press, before I had even myself a chance of my saying here. It seems that my remarks in last years adress led to the appointment of Hooker, M'Klintock and Nares as an antarctic explorat. Committee.6

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller.

 

for any informat on the antarctic islands I shall be very grateful

1
Letter not found.
2
Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, 1886.
3
The expedition led by Forbes; see M to E. Strickland, 10 October 1885.
4
A new edition of M's Select extra-tropical plants readily eligible for industrial culture (B85.13.26) was published in 1885.
5
Southern Ocean, south of NZ.
6
M's 1884 Presidential address to the Victorian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (B85.13.25) is generally seen as marking the start of a campaign for an Australian expedition to Antarctica. In his 1885 address (B87.05.03), delivered on 18 January 1886, he urged the colonization of Auckland and Campbell Islands 'with Macquarie Island as an outpost', as a preliminary to an assault on Antarctica itself. Meanwhile, the British Association for the Advancement of Science at its 1885 meeting, in response to a paper by Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney, set up a high-powered committee 'for the purpose of drawing attention to the desirability of further research in the Antarctic Regions'. See Home et al. (1992).

Please cite as “FVM-85-11-03,” 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 4 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/85-11-03