19 



up 12,000 shells an hour in shallow water, or, allowing for 

 delay in hauling up in 12 fathoms of water, say, 9,000 shells 

 an hour; and as, allowing for shifts,. each diver should work 

 four hours a day, the quantity sent up by a pair of divers 

 in a day would be respectively 4 x 12,000 = 48,000, or 

 4 X 9,000 = 36,000 shells a day, which is equivalent to 

 the work of 24 or 18 naked native divers sending up 2,000 

 a day. 



The results of the work done by the two helmeted divers ■ 

 who were employed as an experiment at the Tuticorin fishery 

 fell far short of this calculation, and compared unfavourably 

 with the work done by the skilled native divers without 

 helmets. 



The diving operations cease for the day some time after 

 noon, and the boats, if aided by a favourable sea breeze, 

 reach the shore by 4 p.m., their arrival being awaited by 

 large crowds of natives, some of whom come fi'orn curiosity, 

 others to speculate on a small scale. On reaching the shore 

 the boats are quickly made fast in the sand, and the oysters 

 carried on the heads of the divers into the kottu, where they 

 are divided into separate heaps, each set of divers dividing 

 their day's produce into three equal portions. One of these, 

 selected by the Superintendent of the Fishery or some other 

 official, becomes the property of the divers, who quickly 

 remove their share from the kottu, and, squatting on the 

 sand, put their oysters up for sale at prices varying fi"om 

 about 15 to 40 for a rupee. On the first day of the fishery 

 the oysters, for a short and to the divers lucrative time, 

 were sold for four annas a piece. The two heaps which are 

 left by the divers in the kottu become the property of 

 Government, and are counted by coolies engaged for the 

 purpose. Usually about 6 p.m. the Government oysters are 

 sold by public auction, duly announced by tom-tom, being put 

 up in lots of 1,000 ; and the purchaser can, subject to the 

 consent of tlie auctioneer, take a certain number of thousands 

 at the same rate as his winning bid. Occasionally a combi- 

 nation is organised among the merchants who are buying on 

 a large scale, and come to the auction determined not to bid 

 more than a very small fixed sum per 1,000. A struggle 

 then takes place between the auctioneer and merchants, the 

 former refusing to sell, the latter refusing to raise their 

 price ; and the struggle invariably ends in the collapse of the 

 merchants when they find that their supply of oysters is cut 



