TEE PEARL FISHERIES OF CEYLON. 231 



declivity, the sea deepening within a few miles from under ten to over 

 one hundred fathoms; while out in the center of the southern part of 

 the Gulf of Manaar, to the west of the Chilaw Pearl Banks, depths of 

 between one and two thousand fathoms are reached. On our two 

 cruises in the Lady Haveloch we made a careful examination of the 

 ground in several places outside the banks to the westward, on the 

 chance of finding beds of adult oysters from which possibly the spat 

 deposited on the inshore banks might be derived. No such beds, 

 outside the known 'paars,' were found; nor are they likely to exist. 

 The bottom deposits in the ocean abysses to the west of Ceylon are 

 'globigerina ooze,' and 'green mud,' which are entirely different in 

 nature and origin from the coarse terrigenous sand, often cemented 

 into masses, and the various calcareous neritic deposits, such as corals 

 and nullipores, found in the shallow water on the banks. The steepest 

 part of the slope from ten to twenty fathoms down to about 100 fathoms 

 or more, all along the western coast seems in most places to have a 

 hard bottom covered with Alcyonaria, sponges, deep-sea corals and 

 other large encrusting and dendritic organisms. Neither on this slope 

 nor in the deep water beyond the cliff did we find any ground suitable 

 for the pearl oyster to live upon. 



Close to the top of the steep slope, about twenty miles from land, 

 and in depths of from eight to ten fathoms, is situated the largest of 

 the 'paars,' the celebrated Periya Paar, which has frequently figured 

 in the inspectors' reports, has often given rise to hopes of great 

 fisheries, and has as often caused deep disappointment to successive 

 government officials. The Periya Paar runs for about eleven nautical 

 miles north and south, and varies from one to two miles in breadth, 

 and this — for a paar — large extent of ground becomes periodically 

 covered with young oysters, which, however, almost invariably dis- 

 appear before the next inspection. This paar has been called by the 

 natives the 'mother-paar' under the impression that the young oysters 

 that come and go in fabulous numbers migrate or are carried inwards 

 and supply the inshore paars with their populations. During a careful 

 investigation of the Periya Paar and its surroundings we satisfied 

 ourselves that there is no basis of fact for this belief; and it became 

 clear to us that the successive broods of young oysters on the Periya 

 Paar, amounting probably within the last quarter century alone to many 

 millions of millions of oysters, which if they had been saved would 

 have constituted enormous fisheries, have all been overwhelmed by 

 natural causes, due mainly to the configuration of the ground and its 

 exposure to the southwest monsoon. 



The following table shows, in brief, the history of the Periya 

 Paar for the last twenty-four years : 



