[1] Mason was appointed as the Woodwardian Professor of Geology in 1734, a position he held until 1762,[2] and he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742.
[1] It was Mason who made the extraordinary discovery, in the library of Trinity College, of a packet of thirty loose and tattered folio leaves, almost covered with the handwriting of Milton.
[3] It is thought that Mason recognised the nature of this material around 1735 and the loose-leaf sheets were bound for the first time in 1736.
[4] The inscription on his tomb at St Andrew's Church, Orwell, Cambridgeshire, reads Senior Fellow of Trinity College and Woodwardian Profeſſor of Foſſils, F.R.S.
Departed this life on December 18th 1770, in the 72nd year of his Age;[5] on that basis his date of birth must have been in 1698 (or in the final few weeks of 1697) rather than the more frequently quoted 1699.