368 
MERRILL. 
There is little doubt but that the Pineda monument was 
erected in what was at that time, 1792, the Botanic Garden, 
and the Noronha monument, mentioned above, of which no 
traces have been found, was probably located on the same tract 
of ground. There could be no logical reason, otherwise, for 
erecting the monument to Pineda in such an isolated place, 
distant from the city, and near no street. Zaragoza’s picture, 
reproduced below, gives an excellent idea of the isolation of the 
monument, and up to the beginning of the present century, 
when its destruction was completed, it had quite the appearance 
of being located in the midst of abandoned fields. The abandon- 
ment of the Botanic Garden, when and why not evident, was 
the probable reason that the Pineda monument was allowed by 
the authorities to fall into a ruinous condition. We have Are- 
nas’ evidence, cited below, that the monument had long been 
uncared for, as early as 1850. Whether or not the Pineda 
monument localizes this long forgotten Botanic Garden, the 
institution was the first of its kind to be established in the Phil- 
ippines, if not in the entire Orient. 
The tract of land on which the Pineda monument was erected 
is at the present time occupied by the Philippine Bureau of 
Agriculture as an experimental station. The ruins of the 
monument, consisting of the foundation only, remained in situ 
until the early part of the year 1904, when they too were removed 
in the construction of what is now known as Wright Street. 
The location of this monument was approximately in the middle 
of what is now Wright Street, immediately north of the new 
Malate school building. 
Arenas,^^ writing in 1850, considered it strange that the 
Pineda monument still stood at that date after the many years 
during which no one had cared for it : “.Extrano es tambien que 
se conserve en pie despues de tantos afios no habiendo ninguno 
que lo cuide.” Its abandonment, then, long antedates 1850, 
and nothing seems to have been done after that date to keep it 
in repair, for Zaragoza, writing in 1892, speaks of the abandoned 
monument in the midst of a sementera (small plantation) hav- 
ing excited his curiosity as a youth, and closes his article as 
follows: “De sentir es que nuestro ilustre Ayuntamiento tenga 
en complete abandono aquel monumento, eregido por nuestros 
antepasados a la memoria de un sabio, que sacrifice su vida en 
aras de la ciencia y por el bien de estas Islas.” Montero, writing 
Memorias historicas y estadisticas de Filipinas (1850) no. 10. 
