[margin note] copy of letter slightly altered sent home on Feb 26/95 W.B.S
Melbourne
Feb. 23. 95
My dear Horn
I have just got back again from Charlotte Waters after a warm & somewhat tedious time but have got some very good things & feel in a better position to write on certain points then when we came back in August last. I have got certain valuable forms only procurable after the rainy season. The contrast between the country now & when we passed through – especially on our return journey is something marvellous. Along the Macumba & Stevenson water is lying about everywhere: the Lilla & Goyder were both running for a time but of course by the time that the line at Strangways was repaired & I could get up things were getting comparatively dry again. I got a buggy at Oodnadatta & with 5 horses got through to Charlotte Waters in four days as the roads were either washed away or very
heavy & once or twice I thought it likely that we should not get there at all.
My most important addition to our animals is a marsupial – the size of a big rat – which I fancy is a new genus & if so a good find – also I secured a good female Notoryctes, a pig footed bandicoot (Choeropus castanotis – the native Tubaija which you may remember that we were anxious to secure on the expedition but could not as it is now getting very rare) together with other new of rare forms. Also I added to my knowledge of the frogs.
So far I have sent you the lists available. I am sorry that you feel disappointed at not getting them earlier but I think that if you consult such men as Dr Günther the head of the Zoological part of the British Museum at S.K. he will tell you that you could not possibly have expected
them earlier. The animal collection had first of all to be distributed to workers at the different groups as no one man could pretend to identify those belonging to more than one or two groups at most.
They have been distributed as follows
+ Birds – A.J. Nortte in Sydney
+ Lizards & Snakes – Mefu Lucas & Frost in Melb. & Sydney
+ Spiders – Mefu Frost & Hogg. Melbourne
+ Beetles – Rev. W. Blackburn. Adelaide
+ Orthoptera – J.G.O. Tepper. Adelaide
Hemiptera (Bugs) – Dr. Bergrotti in Finland.
Hymenoptera (ants etc) – Mr J.W. Kirkby London.
Crustacea – W.B. Spencer.
+ Amphibia – W.B. Spencer
+ Mammalia – W.B. Spencer.
+ Mollusca – Prof Tate
Those marked with an asterisk you have had either complete of nearly complete lists already – that is they were dispatched to you at the expiration of four months from the distribution of the animals from Melbourne & anyone acquainted with the difficulty of the work will probably tell you that this is pretty rapid work.
As to full reports which include of necessity in the case of my section – drawings of the animals – you will easily understand that these cannot be ready even yet. In my own case I have spent all available time on the work since we returned & know that others have done the same. A decent drawing of a frog say will take at least a day’s hard work or it may be longer & a marsupial coloured will occupy a good deal more time. This trip up to Charlotte waters has of course occupied a month of my two month’s vacation which has of course thrown me back somewhat but in the end it will result in making my part of the book not a little better & has been worth the delay which it has caused.
I am extremely sorry that you should feel at all dissatisfied. Personally the work of the expedition has – apart from my university work – occupied my thoughts & energy & your letter has acted somewhat as a ‘damper’. You say ‘If you
2/ Feb. 23.95
will send the complete reports & plates home I will get the whole thing done here & get a good man to edit it.”
In your absence at home we have of course been working under considerable difficulties. I need hardly say that I fully realize of course that you must see the reports & judge of their value before incurring any expense in publication but I was very much hoping that you would have seen them out here.
The difficulty in my own case is this. A full report such as I hoped to draw up on the fauna of the central desert region generally will entail or rather is entailing a great amount of work not only in regard to letterpress but also in the matter of drawings. Now suppose I draw up such a report & some scientist to whom you show it at home suggests the omission of a considerable part of it or of a number of drawings or supposing that
you do not feel justified in going to the expense of reproducing all the latter then my time has simply been thrown away & I have so much publishing work apart from this waiting to be done that I must confess that such a result would not be pleasant as it would mean so much waste of time.
Again I must confess to not liking the idea of anyone editing my work without my careful revision of proof both of letterpress & plates. The latter especially I very much desire to have drawn under my own supervision: the work can be done quite as well & I think quite as cheaply (except in both respects with regard to the reproduction of photographs) out here as at home.
If you finally decide to publish at home could you allow ne (1) to correct proofs of letterpress out here before they finally go to press & (2) to have the plates of animals drawn out here under my supervision. I will of
course send reports to you as soon as possible. With the plates I will send an estimate of the cost of drawing on stone & printing of copies out here so that you can decide in respect of them what you think it best to do.
I trust that you will excuse my writing frankly what I feel but your decision to have the book edited at home with the result of reports for which we shall be individually responsible being mangled without our having a say in the matter is at first sight rather disheartening. In the matter of expense the decision to which you come would of course guide us in the amount we publish but if you do see your way to publishing the zoological reports with drawings in full as sent to you I should like after knowing to what expense you think it right to go to determine what shall & what shall not be published.
I would also like to make a suggestion
with regard the book & that is that it be issued as is frequently done in parts with paper covers – each part dealing with one or more sections. & having its own price. There are for example many science workers who like to have the geological part without having to purchase the zoological & so forth. Each part could be separately paged ^ & indexed which would save a considerable amount of time in publication as the different parts of the work could be going on simultaneously. A very convenient size so far as plates is concerned is that of the Proceedings of the Zoological Society (London)
In Adelaide I endeavoured to see Stirling & Tate on my return but they were both out of town. I don’t understand Watt’s not writing to you for I know that he has been very hard at work on the physiography and mineralogy since returning.
Winnecke has pretty well done his work: his map looks splendid & he has also drawn a very interesting diagram illustrating
Feb. 23. 95.
the temperature, barometer readings & direction of the wind daily during the expedition which will be of meteorological value.
As you say that you have heard little of the exped. I am writing you out a rough general account & illustrating it so far as I am able by the photographs though as I have few geological notes it will be deficient in this respect.
I trust that the negatives have reached you safely before this & are giving decent prints. They were packed as carefully as possible but I rather feared to trust them to the knocking about which they are pretty sure to get on the way home & shall be glad to hear that they are not knocked about or seriously damaged. At the Charlotte this time I took a few photos but not many. It was too hot & windy to do much usually & at other times the flies & mosquitos were too tormenting or the sand too thick to see. Byrne did his very best for me & helped me in every possible
way & since we have returned in August Cowle & Gillen have gone on working & sent me good things down.
I send you by this mail a brief account of the two new marsupials which, so as to secure priority, I published in our Royal Society & also a brief account of the new lizard published for the same reason. As I told you previously so many things are now being sent down that if we do not publish just enough to secure priority we shall find ourselves forestalled when the book comes to be printed.
Also I have written twice to “Nature” once about the marsupials & once about the so called ‘barking spider’ as there have been some remarks made about this in the press. I am glad to hear that you have seen Balfour at the Pitt River Museum. He is a first rate man in his work & I trust that a good series of specimens will go home to Oxford as it is the one ethnographic collection which is arranged so as to give a real idea of what the subject may teach. Along with my notes of the exped. I send you short accounts of black ceremonies culled from Gillen
of whom I saw much during my stay at the Alice. The notes collected by him after carefully working for some years will be of the greatest value. Some of his photos also are most interesting & I trust that you will get them reproduced. Almost all my ‘blacks’ which were in a box by themselves got smashed but Gillen can get photos of natives which we could not in going through the country rapidly as we had to.
I can only say in conclusion that I am very sorry indeed that you should feel as you evidently do about the expedition. The working up of the material takes a longer time than you evidently expected it to do but I am quite sure that everyone connected with it is doing his best to make the final result so far as the publications is concerned as successful as possible & when all is complete I am certain that you will feel well repaid from a scientific point of view.
Thank you for the copy of “The Colonies & India”. I was very sorry to see in the paper the other day that you had permanently settled in England. I have sent round your message
to the members of the expedition.
Yours very sincerely
W Baldwin Spencer
With regard to having the plates done at home: would you mind letting me know your decision as soon as possible. I am anxious to know because if you decide that the plates dealing with animals are not to be lithographed out here if will make a great deal of difference to me. I have colour notes & rough sketches of such animals as the lizards which together with the actual specimens will be sufficient to guide a good artists such as we have here working under my immediate supervision. If the plates are to go home then I must make very careful detailed drawings which will entail a much greater amount of work. I send you a few copies of papers which this lithographer has illustrated for me out here & it will be a considerable relief to me if you can see your way to allow him to do the work Mr Frost & I have been going over my new lot of lizards this afternoon. There are at all events 3 or 4 which we did not secure on the expedition & a quite new one which will bring our record up to some 40 species & 6 new ones – the best collection yet brought down though the Elder exped. went over the same kind of country before us & did better in lizards than in any other animals. W.B.S.
