13 



locks, the lagoon drying into flat open waste land, known as 

 Maana, or, as its salts work ofT and the black mud sweetens, 

 forming fertile tracts of paddy land, while the cocoanut is 

 replaced by the.jak .and kitul. 



In this &one we shall find large fossiliferous deposits, 

 the appearance of which gradually lose their leading features 

 as we advance a very short way inland, until within a mile or 

 so of the present coast they cease to be traceable ; where 

 •they disappear, we come upon valuable deposits of plum- 

 bago, which seem to extend from within a short distance 

 t}f the coast throughout the district. Still further inland 

 we find that the paddy fields, as they rise step by step with 

 the hills at whose feet they lie, are drying up more and more, 

 until, as we reach the Kandyan kingdom, they become replaced 

 •either by paStinas or t>are open glades in the jungle- clad 

 country and valleys here and there still cultivated with 

 paddy by the system of terraces. The proof of this gradual 

 transformation by elevation may be capitulated thus : — 

 evidence from coral reefs and lagoons^ fossils, products of 

 the soil, and rocks. 



All along the eoasfc, at intervals, we find submerged 

 banks or Teefs ©f living corals, while a little nearer the shore 

 -are half live ones, and again along the present coast line 

 <a*re dead banks, continued inland till within a quarter of a 

 mile of the coast they lose their organic appearance. Now, 

 Mr. Darwin and others, have well proved that morals cannot 

 =exist out of a certain depth peculiar to their species ; and as 

 cur corals are the same in all these belts of coast, it follows 

 that probably a change of level has killed some and is des- 

 troying the others, for by no other means can we account for 

 their death. 



