92 



where oysters will be grown and treated for the produc- 

 tion of pearls. From Japanese facts it is almost certain 

 that the farm will be very lucrative, even if only 

 "attached" pearls are grown, but Mr. Hornell is 

 sanguine of success in inducing the growth of the more 

 valuable " free " pearls and has already forwarded a 

 paper to the Linnasan Society with specimens of his 

 first results in this direction. 



35. Mr. Hornell has also ascertained facts in the life 

 history of the pearl oyster which show that its free 

 swimming stage endures far considerably longer than 

 was hitherto believed ; this is important in considering 

 the chances of spatfalls. In this connection may be 

 mentioned Mr. Hornell's arrangements for ascertaining 

 the set of the currents in the Gulf of Manaar, by means 

 of drifting bottles; he is now carrying this out on an 

 extended scale. 



36. Chank fishery. — Mr. Hornell writes as fol- 

 lows : — 



" 3. The chank fisheries. — The past year is notable for the final 

 consolidation under direct Government control of the whole of the 

 chank fisheries carried on off the East Coast of this Presidency. 

 This has been attained partly by leasing the Ramnfid fishery from 

 the Raja of Ramnad and partly by assertion of immemorial sovereign 

 privilege. By proclamation in the Fort St. George Gazette, dated 

 23rd December 1913, Go^'ernment reminded the public that the right 

 to fish chanks in the sea bordering the various districts of the Presi- 

 dency is a prerogative vesting from time immemorial in Government. 

 The position being thus defined, it became possible to extend fishing 

 leases the whole length of the Coromandel Coast, from Tanjore in 

 the south to Nellore in the north. Further north it is unnecessary 

 to go as Nellore district marks the effective northern limit of chank 

 distribution in the Eastern Coast of India. The rights to farm the 

 fisheries off {a) Tanjore, (/') South Arcot and (^) Chingleput and 

 Nellore distiicts, have now been leased out and bring in respectively 

 Rs. 660, Rs. 516-10-8 and Rs. 336-10-8 per annum, the whole of 

 the remainder of the East Coast to the south of Tanjore being fished 

 departmentally. 



The control of the Rfimnfid (and Sivaganga) chank fisheries 

 should react favourably on work on the Tinnevelly beds, since the 

 two fisheries are at somewhat different seasons, so that it will be 

 possible, by inducing divers from Tuticorin to fish on the Ramnad 

 coast and vice versa, not only to get a greater force of divers to 

 work at each place, but to give comparatively continuous work to 

 them, and thus remove one main cause of the discontent felt by 

 divers whose work has hitherto been confined to short periods, which, 

 moreover, if conditions were unfavourable were sometimes very 

 unremunerative." 



