xxii. 



Evening Meeting. 



An Evening meeting of the Society was held, on the 22nd 

 February, at the residence of C. A. Lorenz, Esq., Ely House. 



Mr. Boake exhibited two young Crocodiles which he had succeeded 

 in hatching from eggs found by him. 



Mr. Blake read the letter from Robert Knox, found by him in the 

 Archives of the Colonial Secretary's Office. 



The Rev. Mr. Boake called the attention of the meeting to the 

 quantities of resin in small globules found among the sand on the shore 

 at Mount Lavinia. He said that Mr. H. Nevill, who had paid some 

 attention to the subject, had found the same globules at Ballipitimodera, 

 where he had also found large lumps* of the same substance in the 

 swamps and backwaters. He considered them fossil, and thought they 

 might throw some light on the nature of Amber found on the German 

 coasts of the Baltic. There was however this difference between them, 

 that whereas Amber swam in water, these sank. 



Dr. Ondaatje said that in the paddy fields near Cotta, masses of 

 a resinous nature had been found near the trunks of a particular kind 

 of tree buried in the swamp, but now no longer growing there. 



Mr. Dawson said that in New Zealand great quantities of a similar 

 resin were found, and were exported as an article of commerce, being 

 very extensively used in England as a valuable varnish. It is called 

 Kauri gum. The Kauri tree is still a valuable forest tree in New Zea- 

 land. He had seen a spar 104 feet long and 4 feet square at the butt, 

 landed at Trincomalee. But it is strange that no Kauri gum is found 

 where the trees are still growing, but only in parts where they formerly 

 grew, and now bare of them. 



Mr. Wall asked Mr. Boake, if he knew of the Dum gum, exuded 

 from the tree of that name, and whether there was any thing in common 

 between that gum and the resin he had observed on the beach. Mr. 

 Clerihew, a well known planter, had unsuccessfully endeavoured to 

 make the natives collect it as an article of commerce. 



Mr. Boake had not observed any similarity between the Dum gum 

 and that found on the beach. He would however allude to a valuable 



