11 



The bar is situated near the south end, usually about one 

 mile to the northward of Pulieat light-house. In heavy flood 

 years several subsidiary bars may open — at the present time, 

 one such minor bar is open, situated near the head of 

 Karimanal inlet. 



The shores of the lake are everywhere low and sandy, the 

 vegetation scanty, save where casuarina and palmyra planta- 

 tions have been made. Contrary to my expectations 1 found 

 mangroves conspicuous by their scarcity, the only ones seen being 

 in a shallow bay on the east side of Kurivi Thettu, a low 

 swampy islet east of Irakam. At the extreme north the lake 

 degenerates into a long expanse of salt marshes now partially 

 cut off by a low embankment called Dyke's Bund. 



The main section of the lake is divided into an eastern and 

 a western division by the interposition of two long islands, 

 Venadu and Irakam, lying in a north and south line. To the 

 eastward of the islands the lake is very shallow and .virtually 

 dries up in seasons whenever the bar remains closed during 

 April and May ; the lake to the west is deeper and as a 

 consequence boat traffic and fishing confer comparative 

 prosperity upon this side. A peculiar and extensive 

 industry, that of digging sub-fossil shells for lime-burning 

 from a shell-bearing stratum some four feet below the mean 

 sea level, exists everywhere along the foreshore of the western 

 and southern margins of the main section of the lake, and 

 on Venadu and Irakam islands. Piles of these old shells 

 gleaming snowy white in the sun are among the most familiar 

 objects seen when travelling along the west coast line ; in 

 some places as at Sunnambukulam and Arambakkam a line of 

 disused shell pits have been connected to form what is now a 

 serviceable little canal through a dreary waste of pitted 

 foreshore. 



The shells excavated from these pits throw most valuable 

 light on the past history of the lake. At Sunnambukulam 

 and Arambakkam, now at the extreme south-west or inner- 

 most corner of the main section of the lake and distant twelve 

 miles from the present sea coast, a large number of the shells 

 belong to genera and species which either do not live in the 

 lake or are of rare occurrence, as Cardium^ Dolium } Fusus, 

 Sangaisorha, and Placuna. These do not however occur all at 

 the same horizon, and P 'lacuna, it is worthy of note, lies at a 

 superior level to the others named. Most of these shells are 

 the same as we may now collect any day on the sea coast near 

 the bar. 



Reconstructing in barest outline the past history of Pulieat 

 lake with the aid of these shells and a knowledge of the 



