Newyear 1890
This is the first hour in the last decade of the 19th Century, dear Sir Richard, and I devote the commencing moments to offering you my best felicitation at this festive event, trusting that you may be spared to live through the remaining portion of that secular span of time, in which you carried on your grand discoveries, so as to see still further what effect your researches had on the progress of science. I am just vividly reminded of your receiving many years ago from H.R.H. the Prince Consort the continuation of the presidency of the British Association;1 because in a few days I shall have the high honor of taking the Presidential Chair of the Melbourne Meeting of the Australan Association for the Advancement of Science,2 which will be of real magnitude, and will bring us also to the Australian Alps by railway, now ready for the first time, indeed to the very glaciers on which I was first to step in my triangulations 35 years ago! which I placed then on the map and named.3
Ever with the profoundest wishes for your welfare.
Ferd. Von Mueller
Owen was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1858 and was succeeded in this office by the Prince Consort, Prince Albert, in 1859.
M was President of the second congress of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Melbourne, January 1890.
which I placed then on the map and named. Is a marginal addition with a symbol marking where it is to be inserted.
On M’s naming of the alpine features, and on the AAAS visit to the Victorian Alps, see Home (2014).
Please cite as “FVM-90-01-01,” 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