Ferdinand von Mueller

Melbourne 19. Jan 57.

My dear Sir William

A friend of mine Mr Bates going home by the Suez-line next month promised to be kind enough to deliver a parcel of books for you.

1

A. H. Bates forwarded the parcel from Brighton on 19 May 1857, regretting that his detention on the Continent after leaving the ship at Malta, and the delay in forwarding luggage from Southampton, had delayed delivery (Bates to W. Hooker, 19 May 1857, RBG Kew, Directors' letters, vol LXXIV, letter no. 16).

—

He is a gentleman of long colonial experience and can give you much interesting information, and I beg to recommend him to your attention. The books will perhaps not be of very great value to you, still the transactions contain 100 diagnoses not re[…]ted in the reprint.

2

B55.13.12; see the discussion by Seberg (1986) and his appendix (pp. 266–71) listing publication place and dates of M’s early descriptions.

A long letter of my last discoveries in tropical Australia is coming in the Gov. mailbag,

3

M to W. Hooker, 11 January 1857.

and will no doubt arrive before this, so that I may be dispensed this time of giving any particular account but that I found it uncombinable with my position here to leave for home at present, and that I am thus yet for a year or two deprived of the anticipated pleasure of seeing you.

Sir W. J. Hooker

K. H. &c &c &c