VOL. XLVI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 669 



This garden was planted by the above-mentioned gentleman about 120 years 

 before, and was, except that of Mr. John Gerard, the author of the Herbal, 

 probably the first botanical garden in England. The founder, after many years 

 spent in the service of the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, Lord Wotton, &c. 

 travelled several years, and procured a great variety of plants and seeds before 

 not known in England ; to several of which at this time the gardeners give his 

 name, as a mark of distinction ; as Tradescant's spiderwort, Tradescant's aster, 

 Tradescant's daffodil. He first planted here the Cupressus Americanus Acacias 

 foliis deciduis, which has been since so much esteemed, and is now one of the 

 great ornaments of the Duke of Argyle's garden at Witton. 



Mr. Tradescant's garden has now been many years totally neglected, and the 

 house belonging to it empty and ruined ; and though the garden is quite covered 

 with weeds, there remain among them manifest traces of its founder. We 

 found there the Borrago latifolia sempervirens of C. B. Polygonatum vulgare 

 latifolium C. B. Aristolochia clematitis recta C. B. and Dracontium Dod. 

 There are yet remaining two trees of the arbutus, the largest he has seen ; 

 which, from their being so long used to our winters, did not suffer by the severe 

 colds of 1729 and 1740, when most of their kind were killed throughout Eng- 

 land. In the orchard there is a tree of the rhamnus catharticus, about 20 feet 

 high, and near a foot in diameter, by much the greatest he ever saw. 



On the Acceleration of the Moon. By the Rev. Ricliard Dunthorne.* 



N°492, p. 162. 



After comparing a good number of modern observations, made in different 

 situations of the moon and of her orbit, in respect of the sun, with the New- 



" The Museum Tradescantianum, says Mr. Pennant, in his History of London, is a proof of 

 the industry of the Tradescants. It is a catalogue of their vast collection, not only of the subjects 

 of the 3 kingdoms of nature, but of artificial rarities from a great variety of countries. The col- 

 lection of medals, coins, and other antiquities, appears to have been very valuable. Zoology was in 

 their time but in a low state, and credulity far from being extinguished : among the eggs is one sup- 

 posed to have been the egg of the dragon, and another of the griffin. You might have foimd here 

 two feathers of the tail of the phenix, and the claw of a ruck, a bird able to truss an elephant. 

 After his death, which happened about the year l6"52, his collection came into the possession of the 

 famous Mr. Elias Ashmole, by virtue of a deed of gift which Mr. Tradescaot jun. had made to him 

 of all his varieties, in true astrological form, being dated December l6, 1()'<7, 5 hours 30 minutes 

 post merid." 



• Rd. Dunthorne was born in the year 1711. at Ramsey, in Huntingdonshire. While very 

 young he contracted a thirst for learning by reading some old magazines, which his father, who was 

 a gardener, used for the purposes of wrapping up seeds, &c. Being sent to the free grammar- 

 school of his native place, he so distinguished himself, as to gain the notice of his superiors, among 

 whom was Dr. Long, master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who afforded him great encourage- 

 ment; and at length remored him to Cambridge as bis foot-boy. In the short time he remained in 



