Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Baron F. Von Mueller', Sydney morning herald, 10 January 1878, p. 5 (B78.01.08). The text is introduced by:

The friends of this distinguished botanist and explorer will be glad to hear that he returned safely to Melbourne in the steamship Assam, after having traversed about 1500 miles of the northern part of Western Australia for the purpose of making collections of plants. In a letter to a gentleman in this colony, he says,

The article was reproduced with minor changes in Western Australian times (Perth), 8 February 1878, p. 2.

During the day, I was almost constantly moving and for weeks in the saddle, so that I could do nothing else in the evening and night hours than to attend to my collections and get some rest. I rode across to Shark Bay,

2

WA.

the last 100 miles uninhabited, and 70 miles from one well to the other; but the Western Australian Government of its own accord and impulse furnished me kindly with an official companion,

3

Corporal Oliver Jones; see M to O. Jones, 1 January 1880.

aboriginal guide, and good horses, so that I could stretch my observations over a long extent of country in comparatively short time.

4

The text is followed by:

The Baron did not expect to find many novelties in the way of vegetation, but his labours have been somewhat repaid by determining the limits of many plants collected by the late Mr. Drummond, and by raising up a body of amateur collectors to complete the observations commenced by himself. These matters will be recorded hereafter in the pages of the Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae, as well as descriptions of the new species which came under his notice.