[…]1
Living so far from Sydney, I was not aware of many things which you mention in your letter. Had I known the facts which you reveal, I should have hesitated to reply to Mr Krefft's attack on the Baron. As the letter was inserted in the Herald & signed Curator I thought it carried a certain weight with it & might do our mutual friend some harm.2 Hence I wrote what I did.3 I had not the slightest idea of Krefft's motive.4 Indeed, believing that he & the Baron had had some misunderstanding a few years since I fancied that Krefft was availing himself of an unfair opportunity to accuse him of "error". What the Baron said was perfectly true, & as his friend here I thought it my duty to say so. The "fossilized horse" & the "transmutation of species" had really nothing to do with the question. All that our friend said was that the horse, such as we have it, & our cereals (wheat, barley, oats & rye) was unknown in America before the arrival of the Spaniards. In saying this, he was perfectly correct, as every reader of History knows.
I am much obliged for your letter, & I will destroy it. When I next visit Sydney, I will call & see you. [...] I shall not reply to Kreffts last letter.5
[…]
Woolls, writing as 'W.W.', responded in 'Baron Mueller's errors!', Sydney morning herald , 12 January 1876, p. 5., defended M's statements that had been criticized by Krefft, pointing out that 'bones of an extict species of horse have been found in the older tertiary strata, and in South America , but Baron Mueller's statement has no reference to a pre-historic period'. Krefft responded to Woolls in 'American wild horses and food plants', Sydey morning herald , 14 January 1876, p. 9, arguing that before they had died out, horses had been co-existent with humans in the Americas. Woolls responded on 18 January 1876, p. 3, to rebut Krefft's assertion about the contemporaneous presence of horses and man before the Spanish brought horses to Buenos Aires in 1537, by quoting Darwin's report that the extinct horse was not the same species as the modern one, and concluding that he was 'content to believe…that in the creation mentioned by Moses our cereals were brought into existence amongst the plants intended for food of Adam and his descendents'. Kreftt's response, in 'Science and faith', Sydney morning herald , 21 January 1876, p. 7, stated
As one of our best botanists, "W. W." does not lay sufficient stress on the well ascertained fact that organisms constantly change and vary, and that (sufficient time being allowed) new species are daily called into existence by such variation, by change of habitat, or by crossing. I have as much faith in the Almighty power which brings all these changes about as most thinking people, and I firmly believe that if man by selection can completely alter what had been considered immutable, Nature can do the same, though in her case more time is required.
The passage being disputed was in M's introduction to The natural capabilities of the Colony of Victoria, considered in reference to indigenous or introduced vegetation, his essay for the Philadelphia exhibition marking the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence. M's passage was
Even the great double continent of America, before the settlements there of the Caucasian race, enjoyed from the organic creation but few primeval gifts in comparison to the treasures, which with a lavishing preference were strewed over Europe and Asia. Till the occupation of America by European nations all our cereals were foreign to the western hemisphere, where however the maize existed. Most of the delicious fruits of the countries of our northern homes did not occur in any part of the American continent. The orange, fig, mango, mangostane and banana, alike with the sugar-cane, the spices, the tea- and coffee-bush, had gradually to be carried across the Atlantic Ocean. The olive and almond, the cocoa- and sago-palms had as well to be brought to the western hemisphere, as the sugar-beet, most of our culinary vegetables, medicinal plants, dye- and fodder-herbs, along with ordinary flax, hemp and silk. Neither did the horse nor our select rural race of sheep and oxen browse on American soil prior to the conquest. So also Australia, though great in its pristine mineral wealth, salubrious in its clime, fertile in much of its wide extent, rich in native timber, in pastoral grasses and many other vast resources, free and open for occupation everywhere, so Australia also is mainly indebted to the countries of the northern part of the eastern hemisphere for the new and additional riches, which enable it to rise to permanent greatness.
Please cite as “FVM-M76-01-22,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/M76-01-22