1840.] on the Tenasserim Provinces, fyc. 161 



They are mostly to be found in the southern parts of province 

 Amherst and in Ye province. 



These tracts of land will be found but indifferently fertile, 

 and the reason is their aridity, the water being absorbed with 

 avidity by the porous puddingstones ; meanwhile the argillaceous 

 parts which enter into the composition form a hard crust, im- 

 penetrable to water. Though numerous, these districts never 

 cover a great surface ! 



Part of the plains of the provinces belong to the tertiary for 

 mation ; such are the higher parts of Amherst and Ye province, 

 the plains of Tavoy and Kallee-oung, the plains between Tavoy 

 and Polon, such the valley of Taun-biauk and the elevated 

 land of Meta-mio, such the plain country on the Tenasserim 

 river above the site of the old town, which is an argillaceous 

 marly deposit of great extent. All these enumerated places are 

 fertile, scarcely any are exclusively sandy, none, as much as 

 I am aware of, gypsous. 



To the postdiluvian formations belong the deltas of the rivers, 

 which are, when above the influence of the salt water, highly 



i fertile ; if however so low as to be exposed to the influence of the 

 salt water, entirely unproductive. To the first belong the low 



| lands on the confluence of the Salween, the Gain, and the At- 

 taran rivers, the small delta of the Ye river, and others of minor 



I note between Tavoy and Mergui ; to the latter belong all the 

 mangrove districts,, which are entirely unfit for cultivation. The 

 great source of fertility in the country, independent of the ferti- 

 lizing elements of the ground, is the quantity of the humus, or 

 decayed vegetable matter, which has accumulated through tens 

 of centuries. It is only necessary to represent that the whole 

 country is an uninterrupted forest, the greatest part never cut. 

 This constitutes the productiveness of virgin soils. We can 

 safely pronounce that the greater part of the 30,000 square miles 

 of which the provinces are composed, are fertile, or fit to be 

 made fertile ; and that only the higher parts of the mountains 

 and the mangrove territories are sterile ; the quantitv of unpro- 

 ductive sterile, or unavailable lands^ is scarcely one-fourth of the 

 area. 



Y 



