64 



VI. 

 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 



A. CONCLUSIONS. 



The outstanding conclusions of supreme importance to which my investigation of 

 the records and natural characteristics of the Tinuevelly and Madura pearl banks has 

 led are that the banks have latterly given inferior returns owing to — 



(a) The imperfections of past and present methods of inspection, and 

 (5) Deficiency in the supply of divers when fisheries are held. 



Imperfect Methods oe Inspection. 



The Ceylon banks have certainly enjoyed larger measures of supervision and a 

 more developed inspectional organization during the past half century than the Madras 

 bauks and probably during the preceding 50 years as well. They were, however 

 inspected in a very imperfect manner till the early sixties, when Captain Donnan 

 iutroduced improved methods. Prior to that time, owing to the charts in use being 

 imperfect and the landmarks insufficient in number and in conspieuousness, the 

 Inspectors relied in great part upon information supplied by native headmen. The 

 boats employed were often ill-adapted to the purpose and the search for beds was not 

 conducted with anything approaching scientific precision. 



As already mentioned, Captain Donnan, who was Inspector from 1863 to 190?, 

 organized matters on an improved basis and so far as nautical knowledge permits 

 brought the mechanical part of the inspection to a high level of excellence. By the 

 preparation of large scale charts, whereon he plotted every landmark of value and the 

 outlines of many of the pars, he was enabled to dispense with the services of the 

 headmen ; he abolished the unhandy " ballams " which served as the inspection divers' 

 boats, introducing in their place a handy type of whale boat ; he elaborated an 

 admirable system of " circle inspection" capable of supplying detailed information in 

 regard to the minute features of the ground inspected — the respective numbers of old 

 and young oysters present, the ratio of sandy ground to rocky and the distribution of 

 oysters over it. He trained intelligent natives (Parawas) to act as coxswains of these 

 boats and to record in diagram form the results of each and every dive made during 

 the day's work. 



The present state of the Tuticorin inspection organization is similar to that 

 characterising Ceylon inspection prior to the inception of Captain Donnan's improve- 

 ments. Charts are imperfect and do not show the position of the chief landmarks ; * 

 native pilots (par-mandadais) have to be employed ; circle inspection is not carried on 

 in an adequate and systematic manner; native boats are still employed for the divers' 

 use and no attempt has been made to train efficient coxswains to keep records of the 

 Avork done with exactitude. As a consequence of such imperfect methods I am con- 

 vinced that beds of oysters have been missed and fisheries lost from time to time. 

 Such mischances certainly did happen on the Ceylon side under similar conditions. In 

 the experiences given by Captain Steuart in his " Account of the Pearl Fisheries " 

 his belief is several times stated that beds of oysters had repeatedly been missed and 

 that even in 1836 a bank was lost and two or three beds of young oysters fished by 

 mistake. He " attributed this in great measure to the clumsy boats used for inspec- 

 tions and the ignorance of the native headmen ". Sir "William Twynam (" Eeport on 

 the Pearl Pishery of 1888," page 13) in commenting on this has no doubt that want 

 of proper landmarks, incorrect (or rather confused) compass bearings, incorrect charts 

 and unsatisfactory inspections had a great deal to do with such lost fisheries — a conclu- 

 sion which I cannot improve upon when commenting upon the past and present methods in 

 use in the examination of the Tuticorin hanks. 



* See charts A and B in annexuree. 



