3/8/95
The last french mail, dear Consul Lejourdan,1 brought me a generous communication from the Institut de France, and I have to fill some forms sent to me.2 Would you be with your usual obliging kindness give me the names of the administrating personal or let me have the loan of a recent printed records, in which details of Office-Bearers of the Institut are contained, if you have such documents or publications at the Consular office.
Very regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller
A severe attack of Bronchial Catarrh prevented me to be at the dejeuner on board of the Armand Behie,3 to which I was kindly invited. I sent a letter of excuse to the gallant Captain.4 Also sent a present of Dicksonia and Todea ferntrees to General Dodds the Captain and for the bot. Garden of Marseilles (Professor Heckel). To the General I paid also special homage by forwarding a copy of the volume on "Select plants"5 to Naumea6.
I hope, soon to have more fresh seeds for France and Russia; this time from a very distant interior locality.
Dicksonia
Todea
sic.
Letter not found. M was elected a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences of the Institut de France on 1 July 1895. For what was presumably one of the forms to which M refers, see M to the Académie des Sciences, Paris, August 1895 (in this edition as 95-08-00g). See also M to L. Dejardin, 5 August 1895 (in this edition as 95-08-05a).
Armand Behic, a French mail steamship, arrived at Melbourne on 29 July 1895 from Sydney en route for Marseilles. The commander was A. Poydenot and on board was General Dodds, 'who having concluded his inspection of the forces at Noumea on behalf of the French Government is now returning home' (see Argus, 30 July 1895, p. 4).
Letter not found.
B91.09.01? The next edition was published in August 1895 (B95.08.04).
Noumea, New Caledonia?
For a printed version of this letter, see Home & Maroske (1997), p. 43.
Please cite as “FVM-95-08-03,” 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