Note by Sir Atexanvrr Jounston on the Pearl Banks of Ceylon. 461 
the winds, the currents, the marine productions, and the coral formations * 
of every part of the gulf, as might enable them to form a scientific and a 
deliberate opinion upon all the questions connected with the Pearl and 
Chank fisheries, upon the practicability, expense, and advantages of widen- 
ing and deepening the passage between the peninsula of India and the 
island of Ramiseram, called the Pawmbam, and that between the island of 
Mandar and the island of Ceylon, called the Mandar Pass; and upon the 
measures necessary to render those two passages again what they were from 
the remotest age to the fifteenth century, an efficient cause of the agricultural 
and commercial prosperity of the several countries situated between Cape 
Comorin and Point Calymere, on the peninsula of India, and between the 
ancient town of Mantotte and the celebrated harbour of Trincomalee on the 
island of Ceylon. 
I have the honour to be, Sir, 
Your most obedient humble servant, 
(Signed) ALEX. JOHNSTON. 
NOTE. 
In this Report, Sir A. Jonnsron alludes, in addition to other information, to that 
which he had derived from the following sources :—First. From the accounts given by 
the Hindis of the several historical facts, upon which the Hindé poet who composed the 
Rdmayana (a Sanscrit poem, said by the Hindiis to have been composed many centuries 
before the Christian zra), founded the description which he gives of the conquest of 
the island of Ceylon, the destruction of its tyrant RAvana, and the deliverance of Sira 
from her imprisonment on that island by RAma, whom he supposes to be the tenth 
incarnation of VisHN0: of the manner in which RAma and his army crossed over the 
gulf of Mandr from the peninsula of India to the island of Ceylon, along the ridge of 
rocks known at present by the name of ‘ Apam’s Bridge;’ and of the various circum- 
stances under which RAma, after his return from Ceylon, built a temple on Rdmiseram, 
* The late Marquess of Lonponpverry, upon the recommendation of Sir ALEXANDER 
Jounston, intended in 1810, had he remained in office, to have sent a naturalist out to Ceylon 
for the express purpose of investigating the natural history of the Pearl-oyster, the Chank-fish, 
and the Coral insect in the gulf of Mandr. The Pearl-oyster and Chank-fish are sources of 
considerable revenue to the Ceylon government, and the coral insect is a most active agent, as is 
well known, in bringing about some of the greatest changes on the surface of the globe. Such 
an inquiry, therefore, must be at all times an object of great public interest. 
Oe 
