No. 11.— 1858-9.] PROCEEDINGS, 1859. 



ix 



this Society, been induced to make researches in our forests and 

 jungles for dyewood, and substances available for tanning, which are 

 there found in great quantities. 



He had already so far succeeded in the North- Western Province, 

 that he had actually chartered a ship of 600 tons direct to Liverpool, 

 which was now taking in a cargo of these new products. His atten- 

 tion having been also drawn to a paper by Dr. Gygax, published 

 in the early transactions of this Society, on the coloring matter 

 found in the husk of the coconut, he had made such practical and 

 successful experiments on the subject, as gave reasonable ground for 

 believing that another most useful product might be added to the 

 many already derived from that valuable tree. 



He mentioned these things as instances only that there was much 

 here yet to explore. 



Sir E. Tennent's very elaborate work, whilst it established beyond 

 all doubt, by reference to specific authorities, that Ceylon Avas a 

 great mart in very early times for the interchange of traffic between 

 the Eastern and Western worlds, also demonstrated that the natives 

 themselves were by no means an enterprising or commercial people. 

 The Chinese, who are supposed to have frequented Galle in the fifth 

 and sixth centuries, seem to have obtained no exports here, but 

 gems and images of Buddha. 



It remained for the Dutch, in after times, to develope the Cinnamon 

 trade ; and men of the present generation remember the first planting 

 of Coffee, now the great staple of the Island. English capital and 

 English enterprise might yet add other staples to this, from the thou- 

 sands of acres of forest that had hardly yet been trodden by human foot. 



The report which had been this day read, called their attention to 

 a Circular from the Secretary of State to the Governor, touching a 

 communication from the Society of Arts and Manufactures in London, 

 as to the importance of developing the trade resources of our British 

 Colonies. This shewed the importance attached to such researches 

 at home ; and it was in the same spirit that this Society had, some 

 months since, transmitted through the Colonial Secretary's Office at 

 Colombo Circulars to the different outstations— requesting information 

 under the specific heads of natural products, vegetable, animal and 

 mineral, agriculture, irrigation,, manures and markets, manufacture and 

 trade, social habits, condition, education, and general statistics of the 

 people. He, the Chairman, was well aware how heavily the duties 

 of official life pressed upon most of our public servants ; but still 

 a change of occupation was in itself a relief, and he believed that 

 many a young civilian or soldier, in the solitude of an outstation, 



