232 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Feb. 1880. Abundance of young oysters. 



Mar. 1882. No oysters on the bank. 



Mar. 1883. Abundance of young oysters, 6 to 9 months old. 



Mar. 1884. Oysters still on bank, mixed with others of 3 months old. 



Mar. 1885. Older oysters gone, and very few of the younger remaining. 



Mar. 1886. No oysters on bank. 



Nov. 1887. Abundance of young oysters, 2 to 3 months. 



Nov. 1888. Oysters of last year gone and new lot come, 3 to 6 months. 



Nov. 1889. Oysters of last year gone; a few patches 3 months old present. 



Mar. 1892. No oysters on the bank. 



Mar. 1893. Abundance of oysters of 6 months old. 



Mar. 1894. No oysters on bank. 



Mar. 1895. Ditto. 



Mar. 1896. Abundance of young oysters, 3 to 6 months. 



Mar. 1897. No oysters present. 



Mar. 1898.' Ditto. 



Mar. 1899. Abundance of oysters, 3 to 6 months old. 



Mar. 1900. Abundance of oysters 3 to 6 months old; none of last year's 



remaining. 

 Mar. 1901. Oysters present of 12 to 18 months of age, but not so numerous 



as in preceding year. 

 Mar. 1902. Young oysters abundant, 2 to 3 months. Only a few small 



patches of older oysters (2 to 214 years) remaining. 

 Nov. 1902. All the oysters gone. 



It is shown by the above that since 1880 the bank has been natu- 

 rally restocked with young oysters at least eleven times without yielding 

 a fishery. 



The ten-fathom line skirts the western edge of the paar, and the 

 one hundred-fathom line is not far outside it. An examination of the 

 great slope outside is sufficient to show that the southwest monsoon 

 running up towards the Bay of Bengal for six months in the year, 

 must batter with full force on the exposed seaward edge of the bank 

 and cause great disturbance of the bottom. We made a careful survey 

 of the Periya Paar in March, 1902, and found it covered with young 

 oysters a few months old. In my preliminary report to the govern- 

 ment written in July, I estimated these young oysters at not less than 

 a hundred thousand millions, and stated my belief that these were 

 doomed to destruction, and ought to be removed at the earliest oppor- 

 tunity to a "safer locality further inshore. Mr. Horn ell was authorized 

 by the Governor of Ceylon to carry out this recommendation, and went 

 to the Periya Paar early in November with boats and appliances suit- 

 able for the work, but found he had arrived too late. The southwest 

 monsoon had intervened, the bed had apparently been swept clean, and 

 the enormous population of young oysters, which we had seen in March, 

 and which might have been used to stock many of the smaller inshore 

 paars, was now in all probability either buried in sand or carried down 

 the steep declivity into the deep water outside. This experience, taken 



