To William John Macleay   10 May 1886

 

10/5/86

The prospect is most pleasing, dear Mr Macleay, that Mr Froggatt will join Mr Sayer, altho’ your poor emissary was struck with fever. The Russell- & the Mulgrave-River regions are much more healthy, than those of the Johnston- and other Rivers of N. Queensland. The two traverses would mutually strengthen each other, and I foresee glorious results, as the Bellenden Ker1 is the only hight in Queensland sufficiently elevated, for a change to a really temperate fauna and flora.

After your kind expressions, concerning the Sydney-branch of the Austral. Geographic Society, I have asked Sir Edward Strickland to communicate with you; perhaps you will kindly head a subscription-list, to obtain a few hundred £, needed to pay off the last accounts of the Society’s Expedition;2 we here have made ourselves responsible for collecting £100.- .-, altho’ the expenditures for the Expeditions3 were solely arranged by the Sydney Branch.

I often think of all your munificence and generosity!, all the more appreciable, as you have those, dear to you, with nearest claims. With me the fates have never been propitious, and my worldly means are smaller now, than when I came as a yong Doctor in 1847.

Ever with regardful remembrance your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 
1
Mt Bellenden Ker, Qld.
2
The exploring expedition to the Fly River, New Guinea, 1885, led by Henry Everill and sponsored by the NSW Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia.
3
i.e. Everill’s expedition, and an expedition under H. O. Forbes, jointly sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Geographical Society. London.

Please cite as “FVM-86-05-10,” 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/86-05-10