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JOURNAL H. A. S. (CEYLON). [Vol. III. 



come more appropriately from their respected and learned President, 

 Dr. Gogerly, who had contributed the very first paper that had 

 ever been read in that Institution, and whose absence on this 

 occasion he sincerely regretted. Having been called to the Chair, 

 however, in his absence, he felt himself bound to make some brief 

 observations on the able and comprehensive Report which they had 

 just heard, —and especially on that part of it, which commemorated 

 this Meeting of the Society in their own Library and Museum. 



On looking into their Minutes, he found that the want of such 

 accommodation had been for years, not only a cause of regret, but 

 of considerable detriment to the collections, books, instruments, and 

 moral interests of the Society. To meet this emergency, Sir Henry 

 Ward had not only put this building at their exclusive disposal, 

 but had accorded to them also a pecuniary grant from the public 

 funds, in aid of the private resources of the Society. 



From this day also, as more may reasonably be expected from it, 

 greater zeal, it is to be hoped, will characterise the exertion of its 

 Members. 



An ample field for enquiry and discovery still existed in the veget- 

 able, animal, mineral and industrial capabilities of this beautiful 

 island, — and he had great pleasure in calling their attention to 

 some passages from the inieresting work now being published by one 

 of their former residents, Sir Emerson Tennent, in which those 

 capabilities were very fully dwelt upon. 



The report on the mineral productions of the Colony, to which 

 he alludes, is one of much value ; and the minerals collected by 

 the author of that report, Dr. Gygax, are now in their Museum. 

 We all know that iron is very widely disseminated through our hills, 

 but he points out a district near Ratnapura, in which, as he says, 

 it may be found in such quantities, and with such facilities of 

 water-carriage to Colombo, that it may be smelted here with English 

 coal, and rendered as pig iron at £6 per ton. 



If he is right in stating, as he does, that anthracite coal may 

 also be raised in considerable quantities in that vicinity, and that 

 the iron itself is of such a quality as not to require the expense of 

 puddling, the cost of manufacture would be so far diminished, as to 

 give reason to hope that these resources might be made practically 

 available for the many public works which are now being carried 

 on around us. 



Again, it was within his own, the Chairman's knowledge, that an 

 English gentleman, who had recently visited Ceylon for Commercial 

 purposes, had, through information given him by the Secretary of 



