NARRATIVE. 1 I 



(2.) Whether the commercial sponge which we had found lived in any easily 

 accessible spot in sufficient quantity to constitute a fishery : 



(3.) Whether the window-shell oyster was still present in abundance in any part 

 of Lake Tamblegam. 



Mr. Horxell carried out tbese instructions in October. L902, when lie spent a 

 week at Trincomalee and made a thorough examination of Tamblegam Lake. He 

 was successful in settling, I think, all the points referred to him. He found that the 

 specific gravity of the water varied about TO 19, at a temperature of 84 F. to 'J0 F. 

 But he was told this had been an unusually dry season at Trincomalee. 



With the help of native divers he found the bath sponge living in quantity, of good 

 size and suitable form, in a few feet of w r ater along the shores of Plantain Point and in 

 Yard Cove. I have examined the specimens he sent to Liverpool and have shown them 

 to Professor Arthur Dexdy, our leading specialist on the subject. Professor Dendy 

 determines them as Euspongia officinalis, the common bath sponge, and describes the 

 samples we had before us as being a fairly good, compact, resilient bath sponge, but 

 containing a certain amount of grit in the form of broken foreign spicules in the 

 primary fibres. He adds : " The possibility of establishing a sponge-fishery is worth 

 consideration.'' 



Mr. Horxell examined a number of pearl oysters from round Powder Island and 

 elsewhere in the harbour. They had increased in size since our visit in Februarv 

 but were not so numerous. 



In his visit to Tamblegam (Station XXXI.) he found the temperature of the water 

 varied from 87 F. to 90 F. and the specific gravity from I/O 16 to TO 19. Amongst 

 the animals he obtained were : 



Tetractinellid sponge (a curious Suberitid species which lives anchored in the soft 

 mud by silky tufts of spicules, and the presence of which is regarded by the divers as 

 an indication of Placuna) ; 



Sagartia sp. (on Cassis) and a (?) Cerianthid (in tube) ; 



Various crabs, including a burrowing form with scarlet antennae : 



Venus sp. (collected as food by natives near mouth of Kinnia River), Psammobia sp. 

 (mauve, eaten by natives), Placuna placenta, Trochoid shell (abundant). Ostrea sp. 

 (rock oyster). 



We left Trincomalee on the night of February 11th, for Galle, and the following 

 morning at 10 a.m., when 30 miles south of Batticalloa, found the sea-temperature 

 to be 78 F. and the specific gravity T0215. We took a haul of the dredge 

 (Station XXXII.) some distance further on, off the south-east of the island. 



STATION XXXII. Five miles East of Arugam Bay; depth 17 fathoms; bottom fine 

 sand. 

 Solenocaulon tortuosum and other Alcyonaria ; 

 Astropecten (two species); 



G 



