194 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA, 
and creepers, and then great blocks of rock and again trees, and then 
again rocks. So the dam is raised ; Rama, his brother Lacsmana, 
and with them Sugriva, Hanumat, and all the other doughty 
warriors of the army of apes march over the dam to the decisive 
battle. 
Thus, long before the beginning of our era, the poet describes 
the origin of the bar. As long as the ocean endures, he says, so 
long will this dam exist and the fame of Rama. Even at the present 
day a number of small isolated islands are called Nalasetu, 7.e., 
the bridge of Nala; the nearest town of India is called Ramnad, 
and its Governor bears the title of Setupati, or Governor of the 
Bridge. 
It is possible that some communication between the island 
and the mainland may have once existed, and have been after- 
wards destroyed by one of the mighty storms of the Indian Ocean ; 
this might easily have happened independently of any change 
in the relative level of the strand. Abroad band of recent alluvium 
‘derived from the mainland has been deposited against the north 
side of the bar. There is so much sand on this coast that the 
dunes cover it far and wide. On the recent alluvium, an important 
river, the Vygah, is completely smothered up by its own sediments 
and does not again find its way to the light till it is close to the 
sea. The town of Ramnad stands on this same strip of alluvial 
land, which is evidently more recent than the western part of 
the bar between the mainland and the island of Rameswaram. 
The negative movement which left exposed the corals of Rameswaram 
as well as those of Ceylon had begun to make itself felt even before 
the formation of the existing bar. 
[Extract communicated by Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy from the above- 
named work. ] 
