Ferdinand von Mueller

27/8/83.

I have not written to you for a long time, dear Mr Carruthers, and ought to have done something for your grand institution ere this; but I am still in arrear with much of my Department's work since the Melbourne Exhibition,

1

International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1.

which taxed my time as one of the Commissioners and in three professional juries very much. This year I had again to give some aid for Victoria being represented in the Exhibitions of Amsterdam and of Calcutta.

2

Internationale Koloniale en Uitvoerhandel Tentoonstelling [International Colonial Exhibition], Amsterdam, 1883; International Exhibition, Calcutta, 1883-4.

So I have not even been able to do justice to my official work in all instances. For Calcutta and Amsterdam I had prepared “wood-books”, a pattern of which I beg to send you by this post.

3

See B83.10.02.

It is a cheaper and more desirable form of showing wood samples than that adopted by me for the second London Exhibition 20 years ago,

4

International Exhibition, London, 1862.

when for the first time woodbooks were designed by me.

Probably you see Sir Henry Barkly often, as that enlightened Gentleman lives near you in Bina-Gardens.

5

The 1881 Census gives Barkly's address as 1 Bina Gardens, Kensington; William Carruthers was living at 4 Woodside Villas, Victoria Road, Lambeth, but worked in the British Museum (Natural History), about 800 metres from Barkly's residence.

I hope you will support the Rev. Jul. Tenisons Woods election into the R.S., this or rather next year.

6

Julian Tenison Woods was an unsuccessful candidate in the Royal Society's elections in 1883 and 1884, and then again each year from 1886 to 1888.

The second decade of veg. fossils,

7

B83.13.04.

finished more than a year ago, has not yet appeared owing mainly to the fire, which consumed part of the Governm Printing Establishment last year.

8

On 24 May 1882, when the building was unoccupied during the public holiday to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday.

You can have a set of Mr Woods plants when they come from India.

9

The sentence is in the left margin of the front of the folio. J. Tenison Woods travelled from mid-1883 until mid-1886 through Java, the Straits Settlements (where he was engaged by Governor Weld to report on the tin deposits: see Press (1994), pp. 194 ff.)), Borneo, Hong Kong, Manila, Japan, the Celebes. See, for example, Woods (1884), Woods (1885), Woods (1885a).

Kind regards to Prof Owen. I alluded to him specially in the last meeting of the Victorian Branch of the British Medical Association.

10

Sentence written in central and right margins of the back of the folio.