110 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
The two best sites that Iam aware of are (1) Minihagalkanda 
in the Yala Game Sanctuary, and (2) the point marked with a 
cross on the map in the Puttalam Game Sanctuary. These, 
like all the best plateau sites, are situated in unopened 
country ; and in order to work them, the collector must 
exchange the artificial comforts of the town for the rough and 
ready ways of the wild. 
The red earth country has a geography of its own. It is 
essentially low-lying, with large low domes generally less than 
100 feet in altitude above sea level and 2 or 3 miles in length 
by, perhaps, 1} in width. From the plain they resemble low 
ridges, but are best described as “turtle backs.” They 
are covered with red earth, but the flats between them are of 
varying composition, and, are younger than the red earth. 
The whole supports dense jungle or cultivation. This 
curious undulating country is at first extremely difficult to 
account for, since the red earth is a soft deposit,and not likely 
to offer much resistance to denudation. Nor are matters 
simplified by the occurrence of pools which have no outlet 
or streams to feed them,* and the fact that all the turtle backs 
appear to have a core of older rocks. At first sight it looks 
almost like a case of folding. The older rocks of Ceylon have 
been bent and folded to a remarkable degree by secular move- 
ments. That these are exceedingly old there can be no doubt, 
inasmuch as all the bold features of our mountain scenery 
have all been produced by denudation since the ancient crys- 
talline rocks were twisted and crumpled. The movements 
were due to certain tangential stresses set up in the earth’s 
crust, and acting for the most part in approximately east and 
west directions, so that the major folds run across the country 
more or less at right angle to them. Now the long axes of 
the red earth domes also follow this direction, but evidence 
of folding in the plateau beds is generally wanting. It would 
not be surprising to find that beds newer than the ancient 
crystalline rocks, and separated from them by a tremendous 
lapse of time, had been folded too, for the axis of a fold is 
a line of weakness, and earth movements often re-assert 

* Most of fuone Pa as they are called, dry up in the rainless 
season, 
