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v.— GEMS AND GEMMING. 

 The gems of Ceylon are of such general interest that it will be 

 worth while to give a brief account of the manner in which they 

 are obtained. With the exception of moonstone and some garnets, 

 none are obtained in s/tn, though all of course are derived from 

 the crystalline rocks where they originally crystallized, like the 

 other minerals accompanying them. It is however popularly and 

 erroueously supposed that they have grown where found, and that 

 small and flawed gems are merely immature. 



The gems (of which a tabulated list is given below) are obtained 

 from gravels which have been deposited by streams and rivers ; 

 gemming is now only cai-ried on in the Ratnapura District of the 



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A GEM PIT. 



Province of Sabaragamuwa and tlie Galle District of the Southern 

 Province ; but a little is done near Hatton in the Central Province, 

 and a good many gems were formerly obtained near Nuwara 

 Eliya and in the Horton Plains. Many districts are now more or 

 less exhausted. The process of gemming is briefly as follows : — 

 A pit is sunk where gem-bearing deposits of gravels are known 

 to occur; a typical section would show five or six feet of muddy 

 alluvium, resting on a deposit of gem-bearing gravel not more than 

 one or two feet thick, and called the illani, helow which is the 

 malaiva, the decomposed (usually kaolinized) country rock, but 

 gravels are of course obtained at various depths, frc.m the actual 

 surface to fifty or sixty feet below. Occasionally two beds of illant 



