Monday
I am glad, dear Mr Macdonald, that you wrote to the geogr. branch in Brisbane, and I will send your post-card on to the poor niece of Leichhardt. Can you kindly spare one or two copies of that portion of our prints, which contains my first1 and second2 annual adress. I want it for reference, also to send one copy to Germany. I must soon write the new annual adress,3 so soon as I can get the new work on the native plants out.4 It is some consolation to me in my apparent, but not real shortcomings that the other branches have neither held regular annual meetings.
Dr Bride called on Friday, when I induced him, to use his great influence with that section of the press, which sends home telegrams, to let the British people quickly know of the suggestion made by our antarctic committee, that the Merchants and Shipowners, interested in the whaling-trade, should unite for sending two of their steam-ships at once south, instead 5to the north, with a prospect of a bonus, for reconnoitering the far southern whaling grounds.
Regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
I took out the money-order for £5 - - and despatched it already on Friday by P. & O. Mail to Lübben6
B85.13.25.
B87.05.03.
B89.10.01, delivered on 2 September 1889 (Argus, 3 September 1889, p. 7).
Probably B89.12.03, which was 'going through the press' in July; see M to O. Tepper, 27 July 1889.
of omitted?
The mail for Europe per the P&O steamer Britannia closed at 1.45 pm Friday, 9 August 1889 (Argus, 3 August 1889, p. 2); the ship cleared out of Hobson's Bay the same day (Argus, 10 August 1889, p. 8).
Lübben is a town in Brandenburg, where Leichhardt's eldest sister Auguste (b. 1802) settled after marrying a businessman from there, Leopold Hilgenfeld. Leichhardt's 'poor niece' to whom M apparently sent the money order was probably a daughter of the marriage. The purpose of the payment is not known.
The item is dated based on both the departure of the mail mentioned in the postscript, and the date of M's address, mentioned in the first paragraph, to the Victorian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia.
Please cite as “FVM-89-08-12b,” 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