WCP2961

[1]¹

Palace Hotel

Face au Parc; Ascenseur Téléphone 1.15

Hotel de la Cloche

Téléphone 0.85; J. Morlière, Compiègne

30th July 1909

Dear Dr Wallace,

I am very sorry that your letter should have remained ^{so long} unanswered; but it has followed me from place to place and has only reached me now here where I arrived today.

I regret that I shall not be able to reply to it till I return home in about a fortnight or three weeks, when it will afford me great pleasure to send you any little [2] information I may possess. My general impression of the N[ew]. Guinea flora is that below 800 to 1000 feet it is reg[ular] forest; but above that height the forests were nearly as rich as those of Sumatra. Below 800 feet the character of the country is extremely like that of Australia or Timor — open Eucalyptus park-like country with comparatively few species recurring anywhere. I shall, however, look up what notes I have & write you again. I collected a very large herbarium, which went to the [3] British Museum; but it was there distributed into the general collection without the determination of the species. I have a multitude of notes about these plants under running numbers; but it is impossible now to find these numbers without going over the whole collection of plants in the museum. This has prevented me publishing a mass of notes on New Guinea which I have by me.

With much regard | Believe me | Yours sincerely | Henry O Forbes² [signature]

[4] Ridley³ worked out the ^new orchids, I ought to say — which were not so very numerous & Muller (Baron von)⁴ of Melbourne determined a good many new species, & he & I [MS illeg.] a few more. Muller published a list of all known species known up to about 1893 or thereby — I think — but I fail to recollect how many there were, but I believe I have the publications. I have of late been devoting much more of my interests to anthropology or "pre-history" than to zoology & botany than formerly.