To Alfred Lacroix   30 November 1895

30/11/95.

Yesterday, dear Prof. Lacroix, I received your kind letter of the 22 Oct,¹ accompanied by your grand volume on the minerals of the vulcanic rocks, so superbly also illustrated.² Accept for this precious gift my special thanks, and also the high appreciation of your important researches.Then let me now, late and tardy as it is, offer my best expression of gratitude for the felicitation conveyed by you at my election as a corresponding member of the Institut.³ Of all honors in the world I appreciate this as the highest of science-gifts, the only comparable being the bestowal of the medal of the Royal Soc. of London, a distinction conferred on me in 1888.⁴ I deeply regret having caused you and others of the Professors at the Musée some anxiety by enquiring after the arrival of some sendings of mine, such as the large plate of Nickel-ore being unreplacable.⁵ It is with delight that now I learn of you having received it, and that you value it. The none arrival or misplacement here of a letter here, such as the missing one from you, is not surprising. I receive about 6000 letters annually, and as most of them are professional, I answer them nearly all myself. Now I learn from the Agent of the Messageries maritimes⁶ here, that certain printed labels from the Musée d'histoire naturelle glued on the boxes here facilitates the transit to Paris. Will the Museum kindly provide some of these to be used for further sendings of mine. I can send my cases to my London-Agents, Mess Watson & Scull, Thames-Street when they are sure to be safely passed on to the Musée, but as the French Government subsidises the Messageries maritimes, that Company in a patriotic spirit is sure to help on my transmissions. If after the arrival of each case I merely receive a post-card, I should know, what really did arrive at its final destination. The most valuable contents of two cases, adressed to the Director of the Museum and shipped by the Armand Behic this day, are minerals for you, some of great rarity: I will write to Prof Milne-Edwards also about this new sending,⁷ as it contains some zoologic and phytologic specimens also; Capt. Castellan, an officer of the Armand Behic, has promised me on a kind visit that he will see to the transshipment at Marseilles. Will you kindly, as you have done before, send me some few lines, to tell me, whether you find these additional minerals from here to be of any particular interest for your galleries. The large plate of Nickel-ore came from the wild uninhabited S.W. part of Tasmania.

I will at once make some efforts for getting good specimens of Mantokite and Manhite, and other Australian rarities. Your recognizing the Rhodomite is most interesting.

Kindly assure all your honored professorial Colleagues that I ever will be ready to aid their grand researches from here by procuring material; but amidst the enormous local work here, so multifarious and so responsible it may not always be able to get what is required quickly.

I am getting ready the gentianaceous material for Prof Guignard and Mons Perrot. I did send some months ago the roots in Alcohol of Nuytsia and Atkinsonia for Prof Van Tieghem. I forwarded growing plants more recently of Xanthorrhoea minor to Prof M. Cornu, and trust all arrived in a state to be utilized. With my reverential salutation to you all at the Musée, your

Ferd von Mueller

In one of the boxes is a small case with soil-specimens from Artesian Borings in Central Australia. Dr Selwyn, the Governm. Geologist of Canada, formerly of this Colony, desired to have such specimens. They will interest you also, and a portion of each could be kept in your collection. Will you kindly send by French Steamer the other portion to the geolog. Department of Ottawa. Dr Selwyn would be in a good position to enrich your mineralogic galleries.

Atkinsonia

Nuytsia

Xanthorrhoea minor