19 



To sum up, I have been endeavouring to prove south-west 

 Ceylon is not the remains of a vast Lanka gradually becoming 

 submerged, as the popular idea — referred to by Sir Emerson 

 Tennant — has fancied, but that south-west Ceylon and its 

 coffee-growing hills are an area of gradual elevation from 

 the sea bottom, and that as this elevation proceeded, so 

 the magnesian coating was almost entirely worn away, 

 and the formations of Arippo and Hambantota, subse- 

 quently created, protecting the limestone of Jaffna from 

 corroding forces. To support this view, we may proper- 

 ly cite our present molluscous fauna, since it has 

 afforded by its shells, the very keystone to geological 

 antiquity of allied strata. Here we find an extraordinary 

 confirmation of my views. Almost endemic in -the south- 

 west of Ceylon are the genera Catanlus, Tanalia, Aulopoma, 

 Cyathopoma, Corilla, and Acavus ; while we find at Jaffna a 

 distinct fauna, almost identical with that of the opposite 

 coast of India, of Helix, Bulimus, &c , which has extended 

 here and thereinto the plains that separate the north and 

 south of the Island ; while, radiating from Kurunegalla are 

 traced forms of Aulopoma, Cyclophorus and Acavus, which } 

 however in their turn fail as a rule to extend their range into 

 the northern formation, thereby leaving this intermediate 

 district one with no peculiar features, but a compound of the 

 other two ; Kandyan on its southern, and Jaffna on its 

 aiorthern limits. 



To appreciate the importance of rightly determining the 

 period of elevation of our district, we have only to consider 

 the attention elicited by Mr. Darwin's views, even from those 

 who deny his theory. 



If ours be a district of existence as land of a secondary 



