The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Royal Society, 1 May 60. ¶ Sir ¶ ¶ On behalf of the Council of the Royal Society of Victoria I have the honor to solicit, that you will direct the Contractor, who conveyes the scrapings from the Melb...

Document information

Physical location:

No. 17 R, unit 731, VPRS 3181/P Town Clerk's file series 1, VA 511 Melbourne, Public Record Office, Victoria. 60.05.01

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to John Reilly, 1860-05-01. 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//letters/1860-9/1860/60-05-01-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

Royal Society, 1 May 60.

Sir

On behalf of the Council of the Royal Society of Victoria I have the honor to solicit, that you will direct the Contractor, who conveyes the scrapings from the Melbourne streets, to have a sufficiency of the street-soil brought to the reserve of the Royal Society's building, in order to raise the ground there for planting purposes.

It may be almost needless to add, that the scrapings brought to the locality will be very early required & that they should be totally free of fragments of glass, iron, wood &c., and be placed on those particular parts of the reserve, as will be pointed out by the man engaged to perform the planting.

I have the honor to be,

Sir,

your obedient

Ferd. Mueller.

The City Surveyor,

Melbourne

M's letter was read at a Meeting of the Melbourne City Council's Public Works Committee on 2 May 1860. The City Surveyor was instructed 'to direct the Contractor for clearing the streets to cause any surplus scrapings to be deposited as requested' (Unit 4, p. 85, VPRS 4037, PROV).