Ferdinand von Mueller

MS not found. The text given here is from Argus, 27 May 1881, p. 7.

The letter is preceded by a letter to the Editor from Rummel, commenting on the Argus report of the debate in the Legislative Assembly in which, in answer to a question about the denial of compensation for loss of office to Rummel, the Chief Secretary stated that M had dispensed with Rummel's services because the 'work could be done by the department', and that Rummel had not been employed by the Government but by M, who paid his salary from 'contingencies' (Argus, 20 May 1871, p. 6.) Rummel took exception to this statement and also pointed out that he had done most of the translation of Wittstein's text (Wittstein (1878), i.e. B78.06.09) and that his work on tanning materials other than wattle-bark had been ignored.

C. R. Blackett responded in a letter to the Editor published on 28 May 1881, p. 8, pointing out that in the preface to the translation of Wittstein’s work M had acknowledged Rummel's role in conducting 'many phytochemic and technic operations' in the laboratory, as well as aiding throughout the translation and revision while going through the press. Blackett found Rummel's 'name repeatedly mentioned in each of the seven decades [of the Eucalyptographia] hitherto published'. He concluded that 'The Government botanist himself could not be expected to take the specific gravity of timbers any more than the Government statist, Mr. Hayter, be supposed able to add up every column of figures, or work all the percentages in his useful and voluminous reports'.

Rummel responded in a second letter to the Editor (Argus, 30 May 1881, p. 6), stating that he had suffered injury to his eyesight from doing the microscope work 'in an ill-lighted little room, without a chimney and exposed to all the vapours and fumes of chemicals'.

See also M to G. Berry, 11 November 1880, and, for M's use of the money saved, M to J. Hooker, 16 March 1881.