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Physical location:
A644, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 85.11.03Preferred Citation:
Ferdinand von Mueller to John Buchanan, 1885-11-03. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1880-9/1885/85-11-03-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026
3/11/85
Since some time do I owe you, dear Mr Buchanan,
an answer to your kind letter;
the correspondence has grown quite over my head; indeed I often wished the day had
48 instead of 24 hours, or that life was to each of us twice as long as it is. This
year the extrawork for the London Exhibition,
New Guinea Exploration
and industrial culture
has been enormous.
1
John Buchanan (1819-1898).
2
Letter not found.
3
Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, 1886.
4
M was heavily involved with the New Guinea expedition organized by the Society and led by Henry Everill (see Pulsford (1885)). He was also actively engaged with arranging a supplementary grant of £500 from the Society towards a British-funded expedition led by Henry Forbes (see, for example, M to E. Strickland, 10 October 1885).
5
A new edition of M's
Select extra-tropical plants readily eligible for industrial culture
(B85.12.03) was published in 1885.
Let me hope, after your many years toil you can enjoy on a fair competency and in
serenity the rest of your life, which I hope will be to you a long and joyful one.
Your help as a naturalist and artist will be very much missed in the Wellington Department.
6
In June 1885 Buchanan retired as botanist and draughtsman of the Colonial Museum,
Wellington.
Would you allow me, to ask you
privately
the question, whether the Auckland and Campbell islands are permanently inhabited
by any one; also whether on Macquarie and Emerald Island
any landing can be effected, or if they have any safe harbours?
7
Southern Ocean, south of NZ.
Why I ask the question, and why I ask it in
confidence
I will explain. As President of the Geographic Society here I have in
3 or 4 weeks
to give my annual adress, in which I wish to refer to antarctic exploration also.
If this question was much talked of, in all probability articles on the subject would
appear in the local press,
before
I had even myself a chance of my saying here. It seems that my remarks in last years
adress led to the appointment of Hooker, M'Klintock and Nares as an antarctic explorat.
Committee.
8
M's 1884 Presidential address to the Victorian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society
of Australasia (B85.13.25) is generally seen as marking the start of a campaign for
an Australian expedition to Antarctica. In his 1885 address (B87.05.03), delivered
on 18 January 1886, he urged the colonization of Auckland and Campbell Islands 'with
Macquarie Island as an outpost', as a preliminary to an assault on Antarctica itself.
Meanwhile, the British Association for the Advancement of Science at its 1885 meeting,
in response to a paper by Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney, set up a high-powered committee
'for the purpose of drawing attention to the desirability of further research in the
Antarctic Regions'. See Home et al. (1992).
Regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller.
for any informat on the antarctic islands I shall be very grateful