Ixxi 
West Park and Kew , 1841-1865. 
then unoccupied, but shortly afterwards it was placed at the 
disposal of the Meteorological Committee of the Royal Society. 
In the Pleasure Grounds the only improvement at first 
effected was the removal of a wall about three-quarters of 
a mile long which separated them from the Deer Park, and 
replacing it by a ha-ha, thus opening the latter to view, 
together with the distant views of Isleworth Church, Sion 
House, and the woods on the opposite side of the Thames. 
Then followed the formation of avenues in the grounds, 
upon which point Mr. Nesfield was consulted, the construction 
of paths, and the establishment of a nursery for the purpose of 
rearing accessions to the Arboretum and projected Temperate 
House or Winter Garden, and of propagating duplicates for 
distribution and exchange. 
In the formation of the Arboretum, which occupied about 
three years, some of the principal nurseries of the United 
Kingdom and the Continent were laid under contribution for 
specimens often of great market value, and it is impossible 
to exaggerate the liberal spirit with which the owners of 
these responded to my father’s call. All seemed to recognize 
the national character of the work, and that, as a means of 
enabling them to verify scientifically the nomenclature of their 
stock in trade, its services would be invaluable. The two most 
conspicuous and beautiful features in the Arboretum formed at 
this time were the Rhododendron walk and the Azalea beds. 
The number of species and marked varieties in the Arboretum 
was 3,500, grouped under their natural orders and genera. 
College, London. It is well that the Botanic Gardens did not share the same 
fate. 
I may here remind my readers that Kew has claims for the worship of 
astronomers, as well as of botanists, for that in a house which stood opposite the 
Palace, and which was taken down in 1803, resided the celebrated astronomer 
Samuel Molyneux, F.R.S., secretary to George II when Prince of Wales. It was with 
a telescope constructed by Mr. Molyneux and placed on the lawn near his house, 
that Dr. Bradley made in 1725 the first observations that led to his two great dis- 
coveries of the aberration of light, and the nutation of the earth’s axis. To perpe- 
tuate the memory of so important a station, His Majesty King William IV had a 
sundial with a suitable inscription placed on the spot where the telescope had stood. 
It is no doubt to the fact of His Majesty’s having had the education of a naval 
officer that this rare tribute to a scientific man and his discoveries was due. 
