Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Home correspondence' 'Wood samples', Gardeners' chronicle, 20 October 1883, p. 505 (B83.10.02). It is dated to September as the latest likely date for it to have been sent to appear in this issue.

I beg to send you a pattern of wood in book form. So far as I am aware the first wood books were designed by myself for the London Exhibition of 1862,

2

International Exhibition, London, 1862, where they were attributed to W. Champ, Victoria's Inspector General of Penal Establishments (International Exhibition, 1862 (1862), p. 147), having been made at Melbourne's Pentridge prison. They are mentioned, without identifying the exhibitor, on p. 36 of the Jury report for the Section 'Vegetable Substances used in Manufacturing &c.' (International Exhibition London, 1862 (1863)): 'A small c abinet is exhibited in this court , containing book-formed boxes of twenty-four Victoria w oods, showing all sections, s u r faces , and figures of each wo o d ' .

but I adopted for the imitation books then a case form;

3

The specification given in M's press release, 12 October 1861, 'boxes of book form, with polished covers and planed in s ides; specimens of the bark, leaves, flowers, and fruits to be enclosed within', closely resembles that developed by Carl Schildbach in the 1770s (Goff (2014).

this being somewhat expensive, and the wood apt to warp, I have for the exhibitions of Amsterdam

4

Internationale Koloniale en Uitvoerhandel Tentoonstelling [International Colonial and Overseas Trade Exhibition], Amsterdam, 1883.

and Calcutta

5

International Exhibition, Calcutta, 1883-4.

used the wood in solid pieces, such as you see now, the size adopted as a standard being 7 by 4½ inches by 1¼ inch. The sides and back show the wood in a polished state, but the marginal portion (corresponding to the leaves of a book) is left simply planed, so as to show the wood in an unpolished state. As the book's title gives the scientific name of the wood represented, and its native countries, any "wood libraries" could be arranged either geographically or systematically, or, better still, two collections could be made. I know of no other form to exhibit woods in an equally handy and elegant way, and if great museums were gradually to gather up all accessible sorts of woods from the about 16,000 different trees of the world, most instructive collections would be brought together. For this purpose, however, and for facilitating extensive interchanges, some standard size ought to be adopted, and the present is suggested. Woods too small for books can be used for a variety of turnery — rulers, handles, little implements and utensils, according to fitness — a method carried out for the Amsterdam and Calcutta Exhibitions, each article carrying an elegant label setting forth the name of the tree or shrub, and its nativity.