Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'The intercolonial exhibition', Age, 21 December 1866, p. 5.

[We have received a communication from Dr. Mueller, in reference to a subject mooted by him, that the fibre of stringy bark trees, of many other eucalypti, of the leaves or foliage of casuarinae, and the bark of tea trees, can be converted into paper, as pointed out by him.

2

B67.13.08, pp 243-50.

A fear, he says, has been expressed that the supply of bark would not be lasting or remunerative.

3

See comment in Ballarat star, 22 October 1886, p. 2, where the editorial states, in part of a long discussion of the importance of making paper in Australia, 'We have intentionally refrained from mentioning Dr Mueller's very ingenious experiments in the manufacture of paper from the bark of Australian trees, because though very successful, the acquirement of paper material from such sources would be attended with the destruction of forest trees which have other important functions to serve from which they ought not to be withdrawn.'

There would have been more force, he thinks, in the objection that trees had to be sacrificed, but when it is remembered that, often millions of trees are destroyed by a single extensive forest fire, and that a judicious location of forest industries can prevent any harm from careless destruction of timber otherwise required, no obstacles can arise to these proposed new industries. What Dr. Mueller, however, especially desired was the utilisation of the bark, where saw-mills are in operation or where splitters are at work, and that simultaneously the branches of trees might be used for the preparation of wood tar and other products (as exemplified in Dr. Mueller's collection at the Exhibition); and that the leaves might simultaneously be obtained for the distillation of oils. This last-mentioned branch of industry was called forth through Dr. Mueller's collection of about thirty kinds of oil yielding foliage from eucalypti, teatrees, &c., for distillation, the work being, at his request, practically carried out by Mr Bosisto, who thus furnished the first sample of Victorian vegetable oil in 1854, for the Paris Exhibition; and who on being asked to continue the operation, very kindly distilled the greatest number of the oil samples exhibited here in 1861, and in London in 1862. It was through Mr Bosisto's creditable exertion that a branch of industry, originated by a Government department, assumed commercial dimensions. The same result will unquestionably be obtained if manufacturing and commercial gentlemen, in a like spirited manner, would follow up on a large scale the operations for the distillation of timber or the manufacture of paper from indigenous fibrous substances, as now brought under notice at the Exhibition.]