The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Melbourne bot Garden ¶ 10/11/71 ¶ ¶ I was much pleased, dear Mr Birch, to receive your interesting letter of 2 Oct., ¶ which gives me a fuller insight into your views concerning the search after Lei...

Document information

Physical location:

Item IC 846928 74/1714, Queensland State Archives. 70.11.10a

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Charles Birch, 1871-11-10 [70.11.10a]. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id/71-11-10a>, accessed September 11, 2025

Melbourne bot Garden

10/11/71

I was much pleased, dear Mr Birch, to receive your interesting letter of 2 Oct.,

Letter not found.

which gives me a fuller insight into your views concerning the search after Leichhardt from the Thomson River.

Qld.

The heavy demand made for all charities particularly lately the orphans and widows of the fallen warriors,

From the Franco-Prussian war of 1870? M evidently had in mind collecting in the first instance from the local German community.

render the collecting for any new search Expedition in Leichhardts interest almost a hopeless task.

I will however give a lecture before my countrymen in first instance, and if twenty or thirty pounds Sterling are of any use to you for commencing a preliminary search and for trying to get hold of the apparently insane white man,

See M to C. Birch, 29 August 1870 (in this edition as 70-08-29a) and E. Schneider and C. Birch to M, September 1870 (in this edition as 70-09-00b).

you can draw to that extent upon me through a bank or in any other way.

With Sir Will Denison I continue to interchange letters when I next write I will remember you to him. I would advise you to get the local aid of a few squatters – and to start before the water of this very rainy year is dried up. A splendid Bushman like yourself need only for a short trip a few blackfellows and horses. So make a preliminary search with such means as you have and if any prospects arise, to do good by continuing the enterprise I will endeavour to get some fund together.

I am not at all a man of property; otherwise I would at once send you from my private means what you require. But my health is infirm and I am poorer, then when I came 23 years ago to Australia! If you should discover a new stream or a new mountain, I should be grateful, if you would name it after Fieldmarshal Baron Jochmus , now on a visit to Australia

In M to E. Fenzl, 14 October 1871, M indicates that Jochmus had visited Australia some months earlier and had by this time returned to Vienna.

Birch did as M requested; see C. Birch to M, January 1872 (in this edition as 72-01-00a), and M to A. Jochmus von Cotignola, 2 February 1872.

and send me a tracing of the map showing the locality.

Your regardful

Ferd. von Mueller