CEYLON BOTANIC GARDENS. 
Colombo, but after the English conquest this was neglected 
and sold by the Government. The first English Governor, 
the Hon. F. North (afterwards Lord Guilford) had a small 
private garden at Peliyagoda near Colombo, under the 
superintendence of Joseph Jonville or Joinville, whom he 
brought out as ‘‘ Clerk for Natural History and Agricul- 
ture.” In 1800 Jonville accompanied General MacDowall’s 
Embassy to Kandy, and made a collection of plants which 
is now in the British Museum. He also drew some of the 
plates in Cordiner’s “ Description of Ceylon.” Several 
exchanges were made between the garden in his charge and 
the gardens of the East India Company at Calcutta. 
In 1810 Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the Royal 
Society, was instrumental in causing the opening of the 
first English Botanic Garden in Ceylon, under the super- 
intendence of W. Kerr, who was transferred from Canton, 
arriving in 1812. Seven acres of land were opened in Slave 
Island, where the site is still indicated by Kew road, and 
Kerr was placed in charge of this and of the garden at 
King’s House as “ Resident Superintendent and Chief 
Gardener.” Kerr brought with him several plants from 
China ; his name is commemorated in the well-known 
shrub Kerria japonica, introduced by him to Europe. 
In 1813 the garden was moved to Kalutara, on the south- 
west coast, the Colombo site having been found too subject 
to flooding. The Government had resumed possession of an 
unsuccessful sugar estate of 600 acres at Ugalboda, on the 
left bank of the river, and upon this the garden was 
reopened. In the following year Kerr died, and was suc- 
ceeded by Alexander Moon, who arrived in Ceylon in 1817. 
Under him the gardens were much improved, and in 1821, 
six years after the conquest of the Kandyan kingdom, were 
transferred to their present site at Peradeniya, four miles 
from the centre of Kandy, on the Colombo road. The site 
chosen was in most ways excellent, suffering chiefly in 
the lack of a sufficient water supply, the river which almost 
