To Joseph Hooker   5 August 1894

5/8/94.

The anxiety felt by you, dear Sir Joseph, concerning the well-being of your Son Brian and his family, will have been relieved before this by a letter of his and also one of mine,¹ apprizing you of his good fortune to get the Managership of a Gold Mine in Coolgardie, W.A. Indeed, to use his own words, he expects to become a Millionaire, and that is quite within the reach of possibility there, though such a happy luck falls to the lot of but few mortals anywhere. Coolgardie is the southern terminatio[n]² of a vast tract of auriferous country, interrupted by wide spaces, under meridians at which, when I was with the two Mess Gregory in 1876³ we discovered the northern probabl[e] termination at Sturts and Hooker's Creeks. But we had in a season of drought and travelling with horses only no time for methodic experimental "digging". We were 2000 miles on the one side and 3000 miles on the other side distant from the nearest settlements and the country either side unexplored. Had we made too much of the Gold-Indications then, numbers of "Prospectors", enticed by any uncautiousness of ours, would have fallen under the hands of the Cannibals! —

The generous offer of Lady Hooker to educate your eldest Australian grandson⁴ with your youngest Son⁵ should be eagerly seized under ordinary circumstances by Mrs Brian Hooker, but a mothers feeling may be such, that she may not perhaps like to be separated from one of her darlings, more particularly as all monetary distress seems warded off, though she could not live at the Goldfields, but could live very comfortably a long way towards Coolgardie, somewhere east of York, a region known to me by my travels in 1877. I think I cannot do wrong in writing at once to Sir John Forrest or Lady Forrest, who are personally known to me, informing them of Lady Hookers Offer. It would be better, to do that than to write direct to your son or his wife, who would certainly not be in Perth. The Premier or his Lady could communicate with them and would doubtless see the little boy sent safely wth a family of passengers to your domicile, where he should arrive in the northern spring; this as a medical man you will see to be necessary.

I would like to write to you on hundreds of things, but am so overwhelmed with work at this dire period of financial distress, that I must reserve further writing to a later time.

Let me felicitate you on the rapid progress, you are making with the Index Kewensis.⁶ You will be entitled to the gratitude of the whole bot. world for all times by this work most particularly. Every one of us must find it of to be of advantage to our working almost daily. No doubt a competing⁷ edition will become due at the end of the century, when little of absolute novelty will remain to be discovered.

Always with friendship your

Ferd. von Mueller

Your resuscitation of the Banksian diaries is most remarkable and opportune.⁸