PRESENT CONDITION OF THE PEARL BANKS. 47 



purpose if, upon examination of the banks, he still considered this procedure necessary, 

 and provided the conditions on the Periya and Cheval paars respectively were found 

 suitable. Nature, however, proved unexpectedly generous ; the last spatting season 

 (August to September, 1904) must have been unusually bountiful, and the currents 

 favourable, as the result has been that all the great blanks on the Cheval Paar and 

 elsewhere have been tilled up with yoimg oysters in profusion. 



The need for transplantation in consequence of this quite exceptional spat-fall has 

 ceased to be urgent for the present season. The Government has been saved the 

 considerable outlay which transplantation on the scale contemplated would have 

 entailed. The dredging steamer consequently became available at the inspection for 

 fishing mature oysters, and means were thus provided to supply Mr. G. G. DIXON 

 with large numbers of oysters for experimental washing in the machine devised by 

 him for this purpose. It must not be thought, however, that the necessity for 

 transplanting has disappeared altogether. It is only postponed for a season, and 

 might become urgent again at the next inspection if, for example, it were found that 

 any catastrophe had occurred to the young oysters over any large section of the 

 Cheval Paar. The Inspector of the Pearl Banks should be authorised to transplant 

 from the Periya Paar whenever he may find it necessary. 



The spat-fall has taken place equally upon sandy and upon rocky ground. That 

 upon the latter may for the present be safely left without special attention, but the 

 deposit upon the sandy areas requires careful nursing if it is to be brought to 

 maturity and yield a fishery. The prime necessity is extensive cultching operations, 

 the enriching of the surface of the sandy wastes of the South-central and North-east 

 Cheval especially with large quantities of fragmentary hard material in order to 

 furnish foothold to a few, at least, of the many millions of young oysters now 

 existing there in a very precarious condition. These young oysters have upon such 

 sections of the bank but few opportunities to make attachment to any fragments of a 

 size and weight sufficient to resist the strength of the bottom currents during even 

 moderately severe monsoon weather. They are liable at such times to be swept from 

 the banks, more especially during the first two years of existence, when the shells 

 are still light in comparison with their bulk, and when the small bunches into which 

 they are aggregated are of just the right form to permit of their being readily rolled 

 along the level stretches of the sandy areas till they finally perish. 



Time and opportunity did not permit of the adoption during this last inspection of 

 active measures for the protection of these young oysters upon anything approaching 

 an adequate scale. All that Mr. HORNELL could do was to take from the beach at 

 Marichchukaddi a quantity of nullipore balls (Lithothamnion, see fig. 16), dead coral and 

 broken calcrete (" paar-rock") and spread that hard material over a small portion of the 

 South Cheval area. He also directed the Master of the dredging steamer to instruct 

 his crew to break up all large masses of rock and coral that came up in the dredge 

 and to return the fragments to the sea. This is being done at present, and if carried 



