Document information
Physical location:
ML MSS.200/3, folder 2, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 92.05.05Preferred Citation:
Ferdinand von Mueller to David Lindsay, 1892-05-05. 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/1890-6/1892/92-05-05-final.odt>, accessed June 15, 2026
5/5/92.
Your kind letter,
dear Mr Lindsay, ought to have been answered some days
ago, but I have lately been not at all well, and I also have been extra-pressed by
work in the Department through its reorganisation with largely reduced working means.
Before I received your letter, it had already occurred to my thoughts, that it might
be possible, to resume exploration from the
east
on a limited scale, and as you say, it would be a "thousand pity", if this extraordinary
favorable season, — such as may not reoccur for a series of years was lost to effect
the last main-stroke of desert exploration, and crown the whole late efforts of the
hon Sir Thomas Elder by the revealing of Leichhardt's fate!
1
The context makes it clear that M was not replying to D. Lindsay to M, 27 April 1892, but to a letter not found.
2
months deleted.
If I was allowed, to offer a suggestion, it would be, that a still shorter period
to the operations of a mere "flying party" should be allotted, than you estimate,
and that proportionately the expenditure should also be still more diminished. The
Adelaide Maecenas
has spent already so much for the geographic researches, that it would be really
unfair to him, to ask for much more. Suppose you solicit about £1000. and the use
of some Dromedaries for a
swift light
party during the next
six months
of cool weather. If on crossing the
tropical western desert
from somewhere near Central Mt Stuart
to the sources of the De Grey's River
the prospects are so
grand
, that the field should be kept longer, it will then be optional for Sir Thomas, to
spend some more fund on the new expedition if he likes; — otherwise the mere return
to the overland telegraph-line could not be very expensive, and be done even in summer.
I feel sure, that by enquiries among the natives in the western tropic desert you
will be led to the death-place of the Leichhardt-party!
3
i.e. Sir Thomas Elder.
4
NT.
5
De Grey River, WA.
Pray, remember me kindly to Sir Thomas, and accept the assurance of my best wishes
for your own continued exploratory engagements.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller