122 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
small measure from those we have been studying. We may 
not consider these in detail now, but I cannot dismiss them 
without a few remarks. 
One striking feature of the post-plateau deposits is their 
contrast in colour with their parent beds. They are never 
deep red, while some of them are dazzlingly white. These 
are the sands derived from the red earth and bleached by 
vegetation. While geologically younger, they are geographi- 
cally lower than the red earth, but above the general level 
of the rice fields which were formed after them. They 
indicate swamp conditions in the past. Mineralogically they 
are of interest, in that they are practically pure silica, and 
historically they are of interest as the ground on which the 
Dutch chose to plant their cinnamon. 
The beds of the paddy flats (rice grounds) which were 
formed after them have a history of their own, and they, the 
cinnamon grounds, and certain interesting shell deposits of 
local occurrence, may be correlated with the more recent 
sediments of the coast. Here, too, belong the white dunes 
of the villus. 
I have on a previous occasion (‘‘Spolia Zeylanica,” Vol. X., 
Part 38, pp. 273 and 274) given a short account of the move- 
ments which these depositsindicate. I will say nothing further 
of them now beyond that I am strongly inclined to think that 
some of them at least belong to Neolithic days. 
VI.— SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
To recapitulate. According to the evidence the following 
seems probable. Early man came to Ceylon from India by 
means of a then existing land bridge. He had not in those 
days reached the Paleolithic stage of culture ; but he attained 
this later in the Island. 
The downward movement of the Iand, which took place 
after man’s arrival, was followed by an uplift ; and on the 
coastal plains, thus widened by the exposure of the ocean bed, 
the now Paleolithic man hunted in the drier seasons.* 

* Uplifts seem to have been as characteristic of the Pleistocene, as 
depressions were during the later carboniferous. 
