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JOURNAL, K.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. IX. 



the geological age of plumbago, started before the idea of my 

 writing a paper on the subject was entertained, Dr. King wrote 

 to assure me I was right in describing the mineral as one of the 

 oldest formations extant, and in a note which I had the plea- 

 s ure of receiving from him a short time ago Dr. King wrote : — 

 "Anent a correspondent in the last Overland Observer, don't be 

 led away with too much expectation of valuable minerals (ores) 

 in your gneisses. Exploration is, of course, necessary, but it is 

 often in the less highly metamorphosed rocks — of which you 

 have none in Ceylon — that good mineral ores are found, at least 

 in India. The gold is most disappointing : though you may get 

 traces of gold in almost any region of our crystalline rocks 

 (gneiss, &c), you see what a failure Wainad has been ; and so was 

 Mysore until lately. However, I yet believe that moderate returns 

 will be got from some of the reefs in Wainad ; but not to pay for 

 the awful charges on purchase of land and expenditure on 

 machinery, or prices of promotion money, or extravagant prepar- 

 ation in highly paid officers, plant, bungalows, &c." 



Dr. King's opinion as to the improbability of the existence 

 in any quantity of valuable mineral ores in our metamor- 

 phic rocks, is in entire consistency with the previous 

 utterances of Dr. Mac Vicar, Dr. Gardner, and other qualified 

 authorities. It is significant that both Dr. Mac Vicar and 

 Dr. Gardner should have passed by unnoticed the alleged 

 discovery of anthracite by Dr. Gygax, and still more so that 

 Mr. Alexander Dixon, in his list of Ceylon minerals sent to 

 the Melbourne Exhibition, took no notice of anthracite, 

 although he sent a specimen of plumbago associated with 

 crystalline quartz, as also iron pyrites from Nambapana, 

 the very locality in which Gygax professed — so Tennent 

 understood him, as general readers of his report must have 

 also understood him — to have found graphite, anthracite, and 

 basalt in association. Neither— and this is very significant 

 — did Mr. Dixon say a single word about any form of coal in 

 the list of Ceylon minerals (eighty-six varieties) prepared by 

 him for insertion in the Transactions of this Society in 1880, 

 and which he naturally rendered as complete and exhaustive 

 as possible, including, as it did, specimens of plumbago from 

 Kurunegala, Kegalla, and Nambapana. 



It may be added that no trace of anthracite has been detected 

 in India, although ordinary coal exists in many places, and 

 graphite, distributed in crystalline rocks, is abundant from 



