The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 25 October 1887 ¶ Melbourne. ¶ Dear Baron ¶ ¶ I received your kind note yesterday & naturally feel glad that my ¶ Australian Race ¶ , ¶ will through your intervention, reach the hands of Professor ...

Document information

Physical location:

Nachlass Virchow, Nr. 1499, Akademiearchiv, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. 87.10.25a

Preferred Citation:

Edward Curr to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1887-10-25 [87.10.25a]. 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/87-10-25a>, accessed September 11, 2025

25 October 1887

Melbourne.

Dear Baron

I received your kind note yesterday & naturally feel glad that my Australian Race ,

Curr (1886-7). See E. Curr to M, 5 October 1887 (in this edition as 87-10-05b).

will through your intervention, reach the hands of Professor Virchow,

M forwarded Curr’s letter and a copy of his book to Virchow immediately; see M to R. Virchow, 26 October 1887 (in this edition as 87-10-26a), with which Curr’s letter is filed.

and you will easily understand how pleased I should be to hear, by & by, through you, what one so competent to pronounce an opinion on the work as the President of the Anthropological Society of Berlin, thinks of it. I may remark that the passage in the work which cost me the most labor & which seems to me the most important is p.179 vol 1.

Curr argued at length that 'the Australian is by descent a Negro crossed by some other race; that his customs, language, and, in some cases, his superstitions, agree in a marked manner with those of Negro Africa; but that his physical characteristics differ from those of the Negro in some important particulars'; see Curr (1886-7), vol. 1, p. 152. The page he cites to M is a fold-out sheet with two tables, one 'showing some remarkable affinities in languages of Australia and Africa', the other 'showing some languages in which relationship exists at the present day between the six [specified] words'.

Of the matter of which it treats the average reviewer could not be expected to offer an opinion, but one in Professor Virchow’s eminent position can — & I hope will.

Hoping that your friend may take as favorable a view of my labors as you have done

I am,

Dear Baron

Very truly yours

Edward M. Curr

To Baron

Sir Ferdinand von Mueller