35 
in obtaining a bid of Rs. 115 per annum for a five years’ 
lease 
Some slight improvement took place when Govern- 
ment abandoned the system of leasing out the fishery and 
conducted it departmentally through the agency of the 
Custom Houses on the Tanjore coast, but even these 
improved figures are quite paltry, seldom exceeding 
Rs. 700 per annum. Under the present system, the 
fishermen bring the shells from time to time as they col- 
lect them to the custom houses at the ports of Negapatam, 
Tranquebar, and Tirumalavasal where they are given 
payment at the rate of Rs. 20 per 1,000 for all above 23 
inch diameter. In 1910-11 the number thus collected 
totalled 13,381 while in 1911-12 they reached 12,149. 
All these shells are obtained fortuitously in the 
course of net fishing by catamaran fishermen. The buik 
of the shells are taken in the vellai valai, a kind of light 
trawl operated by two catamarans. Neither beam nor 
otter board is used with this net, the mouth being kept 
distended by the two catamarans which maintain a 
. definite distance apart as they sail a parallel course. 
The Government records do not furnish any light on 
the reason for the remarkable depreciation in the value 
of this chank fishery, and the days of prosperity are so 
long vanished, that up to the present I have obtained no 
direct enlightenment from enquiries made in the fishing 
villages visited. I incline to think that in former days 
divers were employed in this fishery in a systematic man- 
ner; the opening up of other and more lucrative callings, 
especially the great increase in recent years in the 
demand for boatmen to carry on the lighterage work of 
Negapatam and other ports has, I believe, brought 
about the extinction of the divers’ trade on this coast, 
just as the same factor is tending rapidly to the same 
result at Tuticorin, where the scarcity of available divers 
has been a source of anxiety and trouble for severa! 
years past. The only hope for any considerable improve - 
ment lies in the adaptation of mechanical means such 
as dredging, to the raising of the shells. 
(6) Sourn Arcot FISHERY. 
As in Tanjore, the fishermen living along the South 
Arcot coast catch considerable numbers of chanks when 
using the thuri-valai, or catamaran-trawl. In times long 
34 
