Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS annotation by M: 'duplicate sent before'.

25/9/93.

It is with deep regret, dear Mr Macdonald, that I find myself by the severity of my present pulmonary sufferings utterly discapacitated to enter on the long Journey to Adelaide. I need not assure you, how sorry I feel, not to be able participating in this important scientific gathering,

2

The Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science met in Adelaide from 25 September to 2 October 1893.

the geographic section, under your able Presidency having also a special practical interest to us here at this momentous occasion.

3

M and his colleagues were planning to use the occasion to promote their scheme for an Australian exploring expedition to Antarctica; see Home et al. (1992). Macdonald discussed the proposal at some length in his presidential address to the Geography Section. See the Report of the meeting, pp. 131-2.

I have asked Mr Holtze, to introduce to you in the geographic section Mr Rasp,

4

The German-born Charles Rasp (1846-1907) had made a fortune as one of the discoverers of the fabulously rich mineral deposits at Broken Hill, NSW.

as he might be inclined to foster the proposed new search for traces of Dr Leichhardt and the party lost since 1848, he being a Compatriot of that Exploration Martyr.

Perhaps you will let the hon Secr. of the geogr. Section

5

James W. Jones, Conservator of Water in SA.

read the following brief notes which contain the essential points on which I would have enlarged in my intended speech.

6

M's notes were not published in the report of the meeting but were printed in the report of the session in South Australian register, 30 September 1893, p. 7 (B93.09.10).

Leichhardt was last heard of from the lagoon on the Fitzroy-downs; he had horses, oxen and mules, but no wheeled vehicle , so that the finding of remnants of a cart near an L-tree not far from the Macdonell-Ranges, supposed to indicate the presense of members of the Leichhardt-party there, does rest on wrong grounds, Mr Thomson on my request having recently again ascertained at M'Pherson's Station,

7

Allan Macpherson, 'Coogan', Mount Abundance, Darling Downs, Qld.

that Leichhardt had no cart with him, which indeed would have been too great a hinderance in his progress.

8

See J. Thomson to M, 5 September 1893 (in this edition as 93-09-05a).

The discovery of what may have been a Leichhardt-camp on the Elsey-River by Gregory,

9

NT. See Augustus Gregory's despatch with the full journal of the expedition in A. Gregory & F. Gregory (1884), p. 159, entry for 13 July; the passage does not appear in the corresponding entry in A. Gregory (1858), p. 85.

of L. trees on the Alice and Thomson-River

10

Qld.

by Gregory and by Walker, and the finding of L trees and two very old horses on the Flinders River

11

Qld.

in 1865 by Macintyre,

12

Duncan Macintyre.

and the tradition of the natives at Johanna-spring as recorded by McPhee,

13

WA. See D. Lewis (2013), pp. 182-90.

of a party of 3 Whites and an aboriginal coming with horses very long ago from the north-East and perishing for want of water 10 days walk south-east of Johannah-Spring and further also the information brought by Colonel Warburton about L-trees near the Johannah-spring — all tend to show, that Leichhardt did adhere to his original plan of skirting (by keeping towards the northcoast) Sturt's and other great Central Australian deserts and in all probability thus did accomplish 2/3 of his gigantic and perilous task! To search for his death place from the east, would be a far less hopeful plan, than starting a small party from Lagrange-Bay,

14

WA.

for which the Chevalier Giles

15

In 1875 Ernest Giles had been appointed a knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy.

or some other explorer, readily would be available and for which errand in the cause of humanity much facility is afforded by Dromedaries being at command. At Johannah Spring Guides could be taken to the oasis 10 days further south-easterly, where a friendly tribe saw the corpses of perished Explorers, and where still an axe and other remnants of the party are kept. This would simultaneously be a penetration right into the centre of the great north-western desert, would doubtless lead to the discovery of new pastural and gold-country at a comparatively limited expense, would be a definite testing on a certain line as regards the rumours set afloat by the Johannah spring natives, who could have no object in offering these traditions quite on their own acord merely to invent misleading stories.

This would be worthily following up the searches of Hovendon Hely, Gregory, Macintyre, (the Emissary of the brave Melbourne-Ladies Leichhardt-Search Committee of 1865, most of them now numbering with the dead!

16

most of them … dead! is a marginal note with its intended position indicated with an asterisk.

and the Adelaide meeting might decide by formal resolutions on the indicated new Expedition and on securing there and then the fund for it at once; it would be a glorious act, the melancholic lustre of which would add for all times to the renown of the Adelaide-Meeting of 1893. My own first appeal on behalf of Dr Leichhardt and his companions was made about 1850 indeed also from South Australia, when a letter from Sir Thomas Mitchell to me was published in the "South Australian",

17

No copy of the relevant issue of this newspaper has been found.

and when in the German Newspaper of Adelaide I proposed at some length of detail a search from the Albert-River

18

Qld. See M to the Editor of the Deutsche Zeitung, July 1851 (in this edition as 51-07-00).

southwards, views which subsequent events proved quite recommendatory at the time

This years season is singularly favorable for any Australian desert-travels, and Leichhardts last position cannot be very far from the boundary of SA, which colony he also much enriched by his early northern discoveries. As regards the cause of the annihilation of the expedition of four causes, which could bring this sad fate about, namely floods, hostility of the Natives, discord in the party or want of water; the last mentioned would have an overwhelming probability for it. Leichhardt was a Gold-Medallist of the RGS. of London and of the Paris geographic Society. His mapping during the first expedition was extensive as his discovery of pastural country was vast! not to speak of no end of watercourses and ranges, all now studded with stations and other settlements. It is almost a stigma to Australia, not withstanding some heroic efforts made, that we could not yet fix the extent of his last and doubtless also brilliant achievements, and that weould

19

we could?

neither yet build a tomb over his and his comrades remains! Indeed it has taken less time to trace even the fates of La Perouse and of Franklin

20

The wreckage of La Pérouse's ships, missing since 1788, was discovered at Vanikoro, Vanuatu, in 1826; the fate of Sir John Franklin's expedition, missing in the Arctic since 1845, was discovered in 1854.

under infinitely greater doubts and difficulties to contend with than have beset for the 45 years now lapsed already, since the Prussian Geographer disappeared for solving the mysteries of his lamentable and cruel fate!

21

MS ends without valediction or signature, half-way down the page.