22 



JOURNAL, B.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. X. 



KalUppu ... Failing still more in both points. 



^ Kural ... A double pearl, sometimes dni. 



Pisal ... Misshapen, clustered, more than two to each other . 



Madanku ... Folded or bent pearls. 



Vadivu ... Beauty of several sizes and classes. 



Tul ... Small pearls of 800 to 1,000 size. 



The pearls having been thus sized and classed, each class 

 is weighed and recorded in kalafichu and manchddi. 



The kalanchu is a brass weight equal, it is said, to sixty-seven 

 grains Troy. The manchddi is a small red berry ; each berry, 

 when full-sized, is of nearly, or exactly, the same weight ; 

 they are reckoned at twenty to the kalanchu. 



The weights being ascertained, the valuation is then fixed 

 to each pearl class or set of pearls, according to the respective 

 sizes and classes : the inferior qualities solely according 

 to weight in kalanchu and manchddi; the superior, dni, 

 anatari, and vadivu, are not valued only by weight, but at 

 so much per chevo of their weight, this chevo being the native 

 or pearl-valuer's mode of assigning the proper value by 

 weight to a valuable article of small weight, form and colour 

 also considered. 



This is but a meagre explanation of the native system of 

 valuing pearls, which is full of intricate details that cannot 

 now be entered into. 



Mr. Gillman, formerly of the Ceylon Civil Service, has 

 given the subject great consideration, and at my request 

 wrote an interesting account of it after the fishery of 1857- 

 1858, published, I think, in the Sessional Papers for that year.* 



Fishing Proceedings. 

 Early in February, the Superintendent and Inspector of 

 the Banks, with the needed Establishments — Judicial, Medical, 

 Police, and Clerical — assemble at Salapatturai, an arid, desolate, 

 sea-shore village on the north-west coast of Ceylon, scarcely 

 inhabited, and so situated as to the exact position from which 



* See Appendix. 



