182 



JOUBNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. IX. 



presence of abundance of coal near the line, the East 

 Indian railway obtains its fuel at a rate cheaper than any 

 other railway in the world. If coal of passable quality 

 and in large quantity were produced in Ceylon, we might 

 even supply the demands of some parts of India which 

 are far from territorial sources of supply, besides meeting an 

 ever-increasing local demand for steamer, factory, railway, 

 gas-works, and general purposes, which was represented by 

 an import rising from 81,000 tons, in 1880, the year in which 

 the Colombo harbour first gave shelter to steam shipping^ 

 until now the annual introduction of foreign fuel into the 

 island is close on 200,000 tons, of a local value of over 

 £400,000. The figures for 1883 were 195,883 tons, and for 

 1884 nearly an equal quantity. The total for the five years 

 ending 1884 was 742,000 tons, and the average 148,000 tons ; 

 but the resort of steamers to Colombo is increasing at such 

 a rate that it maybe safe to predict an aggregate of 1 J million 

 for the five years ending 1890, making an annual average 

 import of 250,000 tons ; that is, unless some great discovery 

 in the economy of fuel in steam navigation is made in the 

 interval. If, therefore, the supposed presence of coal in 

 Ceylon was considered so important in 1848, how much more 

 so would its real discovery now be deemed ! 



But if the diamond, amber, coal, and petroleum are absent 

 from our rock formations, happily there can be no question 

 as to either the quality or the quantity of our mineral 

 carbon in the shape of Plumbago, of which indeed, in the 

 form most valuable for the manufacture of metal-melting 

 crucibles, Ceylon seems to have as much a natural monopoly 

 as she has of first class cinnamon in the vegetable world. 

 There are, no doubt, vast deposits of graphite in North 

 America, especially in Canada, but the mineral seems to be 

 generally diffused in rock from which it is difficult and 

 expensive (labour being scarce and dear) to separate the small 

 particles. Graphite, although rare in a form economically 

 valuable, seems very widely distributed over the face of the 

 earth. In India plumbago has been found in a large number 

 of places, and has been the subject of many experiments and 

 much discussion, but the results have been hitherto disap- 

 pointing. It generally appears sparingly in very quartzy 

 rock 3 and in heavy ferruginous gneiss. The mineral is 



