Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS annotation by M: 'Answ 18/4/96'; see M to J. Hooker, 17 April 1896 (in this edition as 96-04-17a).

March 2 /96

The Camp.

Sunningdale .

2

Hooker's home in his retirement.

My dear Baron

I have not yet thanked you for your acceptable letter of the New Year,

3

See M to J. Hooker, 1 January 1896.

with its kind felicitations, which I cordially accept & respond to.

Only today I have received your Address to the Geograph. Sect. of the Australn. Ass. for A. of Sc. at Brisbane.

4

B96.03.03. The Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science meeting was in Brisbane in January 1895. Mueller did not attend, but in M to A. Gregory, 15 January 1895 (in this edition as 95-01-15a) telegraphed his greetings; his address was read for him by Major Boyd ('Presidential addresses', 'Geography', Brisbane courier, 15 January 1895, p. 6). Hooker may have received a proof copy, as the volume was not published until April 1896, although M is known to have presented a formal off-print to Charles French Jr. in March 1896.

I have read it with very great pleasure & hot interest. It is capital, & worthy of you; so full of sound matter & of sound sense, & all so well put, that one "runs as one accord"; & what a store of information it contains. The summary of a world's ways & means from an antipodeal point of view, & that a British standpoint, is verily refreshing, & makes one's blood course faster. Thank you very much for it & its contents .

You may guess how doubly welcome your letter was, when I tell you that it as yet the only intimation I hear of Brian's

5

Hooker's son.

discovery of mercury at Coolgardie.

6

WA.

I had heard from him only very shortly before (I suppose) the happy find. He told me that he had a good billet as manager of the "White Feather mine" with £600 a year.

I am still struggling with the Indian Grasses, & Stapf is preparing the same order for the Flora of Trop. Africa & of S. Africa;

7

Stapf (1917-20), Stapf (1897–1900), respectively. (Stapf & Hubbard (1930-34) completed the tropical African grasses.)

so we have much work in common. That benefits us both. The chaotic condition of the African Grasses in the Herbarium is inconceivable, & I only wish that I could withhold publication till Stapf's work is over, for I can foresee that his work will throw great light on the Indian that cannot appear till his is completed.

I am also busy with Banks' narrative, which necessitates a great deal of work in detail.

8

Hooker was editing the journal kept by Joseph Banks during his voyage around the world with James Cook, 1768-71; see Banks (1896).

Happily I am actively assisted in this by my son Reginald (now in the Agricult. Dept), as to which appt I thank you heartily for your kind congratulations.

9

See J. Hooker to M, 17 November 1895, and M to J. Hooker, 1 January 1896.

I shall have excellent portraits of Banks from that in the R. Sy.

10

Royal Society.

Rooms, & of Solander from that in the Lin Socy

11

Linnean Society.

Rooms. The valuable feature of the work is, the revealing

12

giving deleted and replaced by revealing, but his not then deleted.

Banks' his right place as a "working naturalist," the pioneer of the illustrious band of Naturalist Voyagers of which Darwin is the culminant. It nowhere appears in the accounts of Banks' life & work that he was a bona fide naturalist, in which respect Hawkesworth

13

Hawkesworth (1773).

does him no justice. Banks was further the interpreter of the Expedition; the commissariat-officer so to speak; & the thief catcher to whose energy was due the recovery of the stolen Quadrants, but for which the Expedn would have been a failure. — In short but for Banks the results of Cook's voyage would have been confined to Geograph. discovery. — His subsequent position as the Maecenas of Science

14

Banks was President of the Royal Society of London, 1778-1820.

has eclipsed hitherto all he did in his early days as a scientific worker. Had he but published his collections what a mark he would have made in the scientific world proper! As it was he gave every one liberty to make use of them, & except for the fragment of the Botany published by Brown,

15

In R. Brown (1810), R. Brown (1810a).

there was nothing gained by those magnificent collections.

The conclusion of the "Index"

16

Index kewensis, i.e. B. Jackson (1895).

was indeed a relief, for which, at my age, I am more thankful than I can express: for I had always the fear of Saturn's scythe

17

Roman god, represented with a scythe and an hour-glass.

at my heels during the long period of its gestation. In one's 79th year the inevitable stares one in the face so long as unfinished work is in hand — & so it is with the Indian Grasses,

18

J. Hooker (1875-97), vol. 7, pp. 1-422.

but as nearly half of this is printed I may hope to see it concluded by midsummer.

I still go three days a week to Kew, & work here for the rest of the week. The medallion of my father goes by next mail.

19

In J. Hooker to M, 17 November 1895, Hooker offered to send M a copy of the Wedgwood medallion of William Hooker from a new edition he had ordered, an offer M acepted in M to J. Hooker, 1 January 1896. The last known letter to Joseph Hooker, M to J. Hooker, 17 April 1896 (in this edition as 96-04-17a), is too early for M to have been able to acknowledge receipt. It is not specifically mentioned in the inventory of M's belongings (W. Lamb Smith to the Executors of the Mueller Estate, 22 October 1896 (in this edition as M96-10-22).