LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 6 1 



the President of the Geographical Society of Victoria from its 

 commencement ; he induced Sir"W. Macgregor to undertake the 

 exploration of New Griiinea; and he was an active member of 

 the Burke and Wills Exploration Committee, voting in the 

 minority with those who wished to see that ill-starred expedition 

 entrusted to the leadership of Major Warburtou ; and Sir Ferdi- 

 nand's practical knowledge and experience proved to be of the 

 utmost value in preparing for the outfit of the explorers. At 

 the second annual meeting of the Australasian Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, which was held in Melbourne in the 

 year 1889, Sir F. von Mueller presided over its deliberations, and 

 delivered the opening address ; and he was also acting president 

 of the Melbourne Liedertafel, to which he continued to be a warm 

 friend. In 1853 and 1854 he issued General Eeports (1st and 

 2nd) on the Vegetation of Victoria, and from that time onward 

 his amount of publication is extraordinary. His first Australian 

 paper, however, was in the ' Linnaea' for 1852, in German; and 

 his later papers, in Hooker's ' Kew Journal ' and elsewhere, were 

 at first translated for him into English by our former Librarian, 

 Richard Kippist. He was amongst the first of Australian 

 colonists to encourage local societies; and in the issues of the 

 Victorian Institute, and its varied titles, he brought out some 

 of his early descriptions of new plants. 



In 1855 the public interest excited in the mysterious disap- 

 pearance of Dr. Leichhardt found expression in the organization 

 of a search expedition, which was placed under the command of 

 A. C. Gregory, Dr. MuelJer accompanying it as botanist. It 

 quitted Sydney on the 18th of July, 1855, in the barque 'Monarch,' 

 and the party landing at the mouth of the Victoria E-iver, 

 ascended it to 18|° South latitude. Subsequently the expedition 

 penetrated 4° farther to the southward, and returning to camp, 

 struck out to the eastward, skirting the Gulf of Carpentaria 

 considerably to the south of Leichhardt's tract, and explored a 

 tract of country covering nearly 20° of longitude, until, upon 

 the 22nd of November, 1856, they reached a station on the 

 Dawson Hiver. At this time, 1855-56, he was attached to 

 Gregory's expedition to explore the Victoria Eiver, and by 1865 

 he estimated that he had travelled on horseback 25,000 miles in 

 the interest of botanical science. In 1857 he was appointed 

 Director of the Melbourne Botanic Garden, which he delighted 

 to stock with native plants from a distance, more from a scien- 

 tific standpoint than from a popular point of view. In 1873 he 

 was deprived of his functions, much against his will, and he never 

 again entered those gardens. 



The important ' Eragmenta Phytographiae Austrabae ' began in 

 1858, issued in fasciculi from time to time, and running to eleven 

 vols, with the first part of a twelfth. In this he was aiming at a 

 complete flora of Australia, accumulating his stores of descriptions 

 and plants ; but his energies were not to be confined to one line 

 of progress : he burst out into byways of economic botany, on 



