ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



113 



fifty thousand bushels in the Chilaw and Putlam districts), 

 many restrictions are necessarily required which undoubtedly 

 tend to check improvement ; even the fact of having one fixed 

 rate of purchase must prevent any competition as to superior 

 purity. Were the pans placed in the hands of intelligent capita- 

 lists, who should have access to their works at all hours, 

 and should be at liberty to make such experiments as they 

 deemed necessary, there can be no doubt that the total value 

 of the products would be much increased. 



Were it, on the other hand, possible very materially to 

 reduce the price at which this article is sold, the consumption 

 would probably much increase ; not indeed by the direct use 

 of individuals, but by its employment as a manure, aiid for the 

 purpose of preserving fish, &c. Such a state of things is highly 

 desirable ; cultivation and trade would, on the one hand, be 

 encouraged, while, on the other, the coolies engaged in the 

 interior would procure a cheap and nutritious article of diet in 

 lieu of the semi-putrid fish now prepared in large quantities on 

 the sea coasts, by being partially cleaned, and then rubbed over 

 with mud and sand from the beach. 



The whole possible consumption of the Island being, how- 

 ever, very small, any great increase in the sale must be pro- 

 vided for by other countries, which circumstance renders the 

 removal of the monopoly doubly hazardous; but the political 

 bearings of the question are foreign to the subject of this paper, 

 and need be no further insisted upon. For a great portion of 

 the information contained in this sketch, I am indebted to John 

 Casie Chitty, Esq., the intelligent Modliar of the Calpentyn 

 and Putlam districts. I am at present engaged in a series of 

 observations regarding the temperature, chemical composition, 

 specific gravity, and rapidity of evaporation of the water in 

 the various portions of the salt pans ; should I be able to carry 



