Ferdinand von Mueller

Letter not found; item is an index entry only, in the index of the Library's inward correspondence for 1885, without a date. In early 1885, M was asked by the library assistant, R. Curtis, on behalf of Bride as Librarian (R. Curtis to M, 27 January 1885 (in this edition as 85-01-27a)) to check, prior to its being published, the new edition that had been prepared of the catalogue of timbers published some years earlier by Melbourne's Industrial and Technological Museum (Industrial and Technological Museum (Melbourne) (1877)); and a copy of the revised catalogue was sent to him. M completed this task by March 1885; see R. Curtis to M, 16 March 1885 (in this edition as 85-03-16a). Notwithstanding the file clerk's summary of the subject of M's letter, as given here, it seems highly unlikely that what M had been asked to do, which primarily involved checking text, would have required him to borrow the timber specimens themselves; moreover, if he found he needed to check some of the specimens, it would have been much easier for him to go to the Museum to inspect them there. Almost certainly, therefore, what he was returning was not timber specimens but the draft catalogue that he had edited. If so, we can date his doing so to before Curtis wrote his letter of acknowledgment on 16 March. For the new edition, see Industrial and Technological Museum (Melbourne) (1885) (B85.14.01).