Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS written by Georg Luehmann and signed by M.

Melbourne, Easter 1881

2

Easter Day was 17 April in 1881.

Sir

I have the honor to draw your favorable recollection to a proposal, submitted in January last through the Honorable the Chief Secretary of Victoria to the Intercolonial Conference in Sydney,

3

See M to G. Berry, 11 January 1881, and notes thereto.

for a new search after vestiges of the exploration-party of Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt, missing since 1848. At the time when this proposition was made, it seemed likely that the assertions of Mr. Skuthorpe, in reference to alleged traces of the unfortunate expedition, were worthy of some credence; but as now several months have elapsed without any further revelations through the above-named person,

4

Skuthorpe had claimed to have found the grave of one of Leichhardt's companions on his last expedition, Classen, and relics of the expedition, but when pressed failed to produce anything; see D. Lewis (2013), pp. 262-82.

I have received the permission of the Honorable Graham Berry to address you on the subject again and further authorized to state, that he will place the sum of £300− on the estimates of the colony Victoria, if South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland will kindly provide the same sum for a new search-party. The reasons for this new effort have been set forth already in the letters submitted by Mr. Berry to the Conference and are briefly reported in a Melbourne Journal of which I beg to submit a copy;

5

Enclosure not found, perhaps B80.02.04?

I will therefore now only add, that I propose, that the command of the new Expedition should be entrusted to Mr. Ernest Giles, or in the event of this tried explorer being finally unable to take the geographic field once more, that his Lieutenant in the second and third of his expeditions, Mr. Surveyor Tietkens, should undertake the leadership of an intended small party with Camels such as for £1200 could be kept in the field during a year, to search in the region of the Mulligan-river, for testing the truth of the allegations of Hume and Skuthorpe and for following up the traces thus obtained or for other wise instituting enquiries among the native tribes in as yet unexplored regions east and west of our trans-continental telegraph-line, whereby anyhow a large additional area of country will be mapped and opened for settlement, in which efforts all the Australian colonies are geographically, rurally and commercially interested, while it is almost certain, that in the new tracts, through which Leichhardt and his large train must have passed somewhere, real tidings of his fate will be obtained.

Honorable Chief Secretary

South Australia