Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here was read at the meeting of the Linnean Society of New South Wales on 25 October 1893 (Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, new series, vol. 8 (1894), p. 331). It is introduced by: 'The following extract of a letter from Sir Joseph Hooker was communicated by Baron von Mueller, as being of very great interest to local botanists, since the name of Sir Joseph Banks will ever be identified with the vegetation of Botany Bay : —'.

The letter is dated to September 1893, as the latest date that it could have been sent from Britain, for M to send the extract to Sydney to be read in late October.

I forget whether I informed you that I have at last got hold of Banks' Journal of Cook's First Voyage, or rather of my aunt's (Miss Turner's) copy of it, made when all Banks' correspondence was entrusted to my grandfather

2

Dawson Turner; Joseph Hooker had helped Turner in the collation of the original with the copy made by Turner's daughter (J. Hooker (1893)).

for writing a Life of Banks (see 'Nature,' xlviii. 195, June 29, 1893).

3

Hooker had discovered 'last week' that 'the original of all Banks' correspondence and of his Journal of the Endeavour's voyage, were in the MS. Department of the British Museum, and the aforesaid copy in the Natural History Department of the same Institution' (J. Hooker (1893), p. 196).

The bulk of it equals that of Cook's Journal just published by Capt. Wharton.

4

Cook (1893).

I am having a copy made in the hope of getting a publisher for it.

5

Published as Banks (1896).

It is most interesting and full of curious matter. Banks was a wonderful man.