264 DR. H, LYSTER JAMESON ON 
practical culture of the pearl-oyster and on the improvement of 
the pearl-banks ” (50). 
On the formation of the Company Mr. Hornell was transferred 
to its service as local General Manager, Prof. Herdman being 
made Scientific Adviser. 
In April 1908 Prof. Herdman, at the request of the Company, 
paid another short visit to Ceylon, to enquire into the question of 
the inspection of the banks and other branches of the business. 
As a result of Prof. Herdman’s inquiries, the post of General 
Manager was abolished, being merged in that of Managing 
Director, and Mr, Hornell resigned, being succeeded by Mr. T. 
Southwell, A.R.C.Se. (Lond.), who since 1907 had been acting as 
Mr. Hornell’s assistant, and previously to that had assisted 
Prof. Herdman in his laboratory at Liverpool in the preparation 
of the material sent home for investigation. Mr. Southwell 
was made Scientific Adviser, a post which he still holds. Pro- 
fessor Herdman continued to be retained in an advisory capacity. 
Capt. J. Kerkham was appointed Superintendent of Fisheries*. 
Besides the work of the Company’s scientific employees, Dr. A. 
Willey, in his capacity as Marine Biologist to the Government 
(a post which he held along with the Directorship of the Ceylon 
Museum), has published some observations in the Ceylon 
Administrative reports and in ‘ Spolia Zeylanica.’ 
Particuiars of the work done, and of the conclusions arrived at, 
by these several naturalists will be given in the course of the paper. 
In considering the incompleteness of the observations, despite 
the eight and a half years that have been devoted to the study of 
the Ceylon pearl-banks and the very large sums of money that 
have been expended, it must, of course, be borne in mind that for 
the last three or four years the banks are stated to have been 
practically bare of oysters t+, and the prosecution of the investi- 
gations initiated by Prof. Herdman has thus been seriously 
hampered. But it is amazing that a Company whose prospects 
were so largely dependent on scientific work should have failed 
to set by an adequate stock of properly preserved material for 
scientific Investigations and to establish at a suitable station a 
reserve of live oysters when the oysters were passing through 
their hands by the million. Had this been done, the barren 
years that have now come might have been devoted to the 
examination and amplification of Prof. Herdman’s observations, 
* Since the above was written the operatious of the Company have ceased. Tt was 
announced in the ‘Times’ of April 4th, 1912, that the lease had been terminated, 
a deposit of £10,000 together with the property of the Company being forfeited to 
the Government. An examination of the causes of the failure of this short-lived 
Company, which started with a capital of £165,000, has lately been published by the 
present writer (26 a). 
+ Not entirely ; for it was possible to obtain 12,000 oysters in Feb. 1910 for Mr. 
Southwell’s feeding experiment described in Part V. of the Ceylon Marine Biolopieal 
Reports, p. 213, and no less than 35,000 oysters ranging from 8 months to 24 years 
old were obtained for the experiment described in Part Iv. of the same publication, 
p. 169. Mr. Southwell, in a paper published in May 1911 (42), s says: “ The only bed 
which now exists is confined to an inshore area, and the oysters found thereon only 
rarely contain the pearl-inducing parasite.” 
6] 
