Document information

Physical location:

ML MSS.853/2, item 6, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (New South Wales Branch), Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 94.08.13

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Alexander Macdonald, 1894-08-13. 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/1890-6/1894/94-08-13-final.odt>, accessed June 9, 2026

13/8/94
Am quite touched, dear Mr Macdonald, with the kindness of our geographic friend, Mr Mann, to think of me also specially on the occasion, when my French Confrerer of the "Institut" deemed me worthy of election into one of the corresponding memberships, which became vacant.
1
M had apparently been misled by a letter he had received from the French botanist G. A. Chatin into thinking he had been elected a Corresponding Member of the Académie des Sciences of the Institut de France (see M to L. Dejardin, 5 August 1895). M was, however, elected to the Academy on 1 July 1895, following the death of Nathaniel Pringsheim. M's supposed election was reported in Sydney morning herald, 13 July 1894, p. 5, Argus, 13 July 1894, p. 5, Australasian (Mebourne), 14 July 1894, p. 68, and Record (Emerald Hill), 28 July, 1894 and other newspapers. It is possible that Mann was responding to the press reports, as might have others who offered congratulations; see,for example, the acknowledgement in M to J. Shillinglaw, 22 July 1894.
When you communicate with our distinguished friend in Sydney, kindly say, that I often think of his illustrious father in law, Sir Thomas Mitchell, whose honored name occurs hundreds of times in my phytologic works, as Sir Thomas amidst the onerous duties of early Australian Land Explorations never missed an opportunity to gather plants then quite new
With regardful remembrance your
Ferd. von Mueller.