No. 31.— 1885.] 



PLUMBAGO. 



171 



PLUMBAGO : 



With special reference to the Position occupied by the Mineral 

 in the Commerce of Ceylon ; 



And the Question discussed of the alleged existence in the 

 Island of the Allied Substance, Anthracite. 



By A. M. Ferguson, Esq., C.M.G. 

 (Read 28tk August, 1885.) 



The mineral of which this paper treats is a form of 

 carbon, the substance which constitutes so large a portion 

 of organized nature, more especially of the vegetable world. 

 Graphite is in truth vegetable matter mineralized by those 

 various forces of moisture, heat, friction, pressure, and electri- 

 city or magnetism, which have so marvellously metamor- 

 phosed the primitive rocks in which the mineral is generally, 

 if not exclusively found. In Geikie's Handbook of Geology, 

 graphite is mentioned first in the list of rock-forming 

 minerals, sulphur and iron following, before silica in its 

 protean forms is specified. In a more or less definitely 

 crystallized, foliated, columnar, needle-like, or massive 

 shape, the mineral embodies the altered remains of some of 

 the earliest plant forms which appeared on the earth, when 

 the fiat was uttered in the far back ages of creation, " Let 

 the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit 

 tree bearing fruit." Those of you who entertain a vivid 

 recollection of the fascinating paper by Dr. Trimen on the 

 Flora of Ceylon, recently read in this hall, can imagine the 

 delight it would afford that eminent naturalist and thousands 

 of other scientists, could the brilliant steel-grey to jet-black 

 ore we are considering reveal the secrets of its vegetable 

 origin and show the fibres, the leaves, the flowers, and fruits 

 of the earliest herbage of the morniog of the times, from 

 which it has been transformed, in like manner as ordinary 

 coal also generally speaks of the early days of the geologic 



c 



