194 



JOURNAL; R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. IX. 



the profits of the pursuit, never very great and always 

 precarious, have recently been low or nil. 



When at its highest market value I do not suppose 

 that Ceylon plumbago ever sold for more than £50 per 

 ton : indeed the highest price of which I have evidence 

 is £48 realized by Mr. W. A. Fernando, of Brownrigg-street, 

 Colombo. What is this to the celebrated Borrowdale pencil 

 " black lead" mines, which, after having been worked since 

 the reign of Queen Elizabeth, recently gave out, so that 

 now pencils picked up at Keswick as curiosities cost sixpence 

 each, being formed, if local ore is really used, of fragments 

 found scattered amongst rocks or in the beds of streams ! 

 In the report of the Matara District for 1870 the Assistant 

 Government Agent stated : — 



" To meet Ceylon plumbago in Cumberland was certainly a 

 surprise ; but when recently at the English Lakes I learned that 

 plumbago from this Island was mixed with the local graphite to 

 make good pencils." 



In the palmy days of the plumbago mines of the North 

 of England the black lead obtained from them was valued at 

 30s. per pound, or over £3,000 per ton, or within about two- 

 thirds of the price of ordinary gold. We cannot be surprised 

 therefore to learn that a couple of centuries before the world 

 heard of the gold escorts of California and Australia, the 

 black lead of the English Lake region was guarded in its 

 transit, in carts, from mine to manufactory by parties of 

 military, the robbery of black lead mines being, by an 

 Act of George II., constituted a felony. The Act, curiously 

 enough, recited that black lead was employed for divers 

 useful purposes, and more especially for the casting of 

 bomb-shells, round shot, and cannon balls. The connection, 

 therefore, with the art of war of the mineral so long asso- 

 ciated with the most intellectual and humanizing of the 

 arts of peace— writing and drawing, to wit — does not date 

 from yesterday, neither was appreciation of the value of the 

 Borrowdale mineral of late date, for a grant of the manor 

 of Borrowdale as far back as the reign of James I. refers 

 to " the wad holes and wad, commonly called cawke? The 

 affinity of graphite to coke, whether artificially obtained 

 from coal or naturally occurring as anthracite, was thus 

 early recognized. 



