582 MR. E. .T. WAYLJlND AjS t D Jilt. A. M". DATIES [vol. lxxix, 



Near Weligama (in the extreme south of the island, more than 

 SO miles from Minihagalkancla) a mile or so inland, a sandstone, 

 dipping landwards, is exposed in some drainage-trenches. This 

 may possibly be Miocene, but I only saw these exposures when on 

 active service during the riots of 1915, and could make no detailed 

 examination of them. 



Relation of the Jaffna and Minihagalkanda beds. — 

 The thickness of the Jaffna limestone is unknown, and its base has 

 never been seen in the peninsula. It is probably to be reckoned 

 in hundreds of feet. Assuming that no allowance need be made 

 for overlap, the Minihagalkanda beds, resting as they do upon the 

 crystalline rocks, must represent the base of the Ceylon Miocene, 

 and should therefore be somewhat older than the Jaffna deposits. 

 The palseontological evidence seems to confirm this view. 



(3) Other Miocene areas. — Except for the possible Miocene 

 sandstone at Weligama, no sediments likely to be Miocene are 

 known along the southern and western coasts between the 

 Minihagalkanda district and Puttalam (8° lat. N.). Prom here 

 to about 9° lat. N., both along the coast and inland there are 

 many exposures of limestones yielding the Jaffna fauna and other 

 possible Miocene strata. In the southern part of the Mannar and 

 western part of the Anurudhapura districts, where rivers have 

 cut into these beds, the following general succession can be made 

 out : — 



4. Red earth. 



3. Areno-argillaceons series. 



2. Limestones of Jaffna facies. 



1. Calcareous beds. 



The only doubtful point in this sequence is the position of the 

 calcareous beds, which are nowhere seen to underlie the others, but 

 are placed at the base as being the only strata seen to rest directly 

 upon the crystalline complex (except the red earth, which overlaps 

 the rest). These calcareous beds are full of tiiw vermicular 

 cavities, and contain strings of grey and white limestone-nodules. 

 They are exposed along the Moderagam river (Upper Am) near 

 the Tekkam (a large masonry dam built many centuries ago, now 

 difficult to find in the heart of the jungle), and within a few miles 

 of it along the course of the Paymadu Oya, Kurukatum Aru, 

 Kombankutti Oya, and south-east of Kuttian Kullam. 



The fossiliferous limestones, besides occurring in the inland 

 districts mentioned above, occur also in the Puttalam district, at 

 H, 5ir, and 6 miles north of the Pomparippu river, along the 

 Mannar track ; along the coast south of the Kalu Oya. north of 

 the Pomparippu, and west of Sinna Uppu Yillu, where they form 

 turtle-back hills the first of which presents a sheer 50-foot cliff 

 to the sea ; also in the northern part of the low-lying Kalpitaya 

 peninsula and the islands near it. Localities which have yielded 

 fossils are indicated in the palseontological lists (pp. 586-87). 



