From Ferdinand von Mueller to Walter Gill   6 Sep 1892

6/9/92

In reply to your letter,¹ just received, dear Mr Gill, I beg to direct your attention to Capt Ellwood Cooper's small volume on "Eucalyptus-trees," published 1876 in San Francisco,² because my lecture on "forest culture in relation to industrial pursuits," given in 1871, is republished in that volume.³ Copies of it or simple prints of the lecture must be in the Adelaide public Library, or in Hon Mr Krichauffs or in others near you. I have only now one copy in the Departmental library here left.⁴

The getting of charcoal, tar, turpentine is described in that print. As regards lamp-black, to which I did not refer then, the process is very simple, to obtain this substance. Impure resin or very resinous branches are in low ovens, by scanty access of air to the fireplace, heated. A flew⁵ leads nearly horizontally into a chamber, best 10 feet high and 16 feet wide, built of bricks. In the ceiling is to be a large opening, covered by a flannel-bag, which is supported upright by some wooden stays. During the ignition the lamp-black is gradually deposited in the flew, the chamber and the bag. I gave also a full account, how Potash should be obtained, in my discourse of 1871. This is the most lucrative of all the products, referred to by me.

I am delighted to hear of your extensive upgrowth of Pinus insignis. May I appeal to your feeling of bare justice and in support of my Department now in difficulty, to mention in some public printed Documents, that plants of Pinus insignis were in vast numbers sent out by me first already in 1859 when even the name of Pinus insignis was not yet known in Australia before, and widely so over Australia, that these distributions on a very large scale were annually continued all through the sixthier years of our century and that the other colonies followed me in the seventhier years.

May I ask, kindly to get me a good supply of well ripened seeds of Casuarina Decaisneana see Select plants, eighth English Edition ⁶ from Central Australia,⁷ where this tree in sandy Deserts is not rare. It has much longer internodes of the foliage, than any other Casuarina. Let me advise you, to sow it on sandlands by the hundreds of thousands!⁸

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

You have not sent any bot specimens for a long time.

Casuarina Decaisneana

Pinus insignis