46 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XV. 



And added in a footnote : — 



Since this Paper was written I have examined the rock and found 

 it to be laminated granite, and the marks merely the effects of 

 weathering. 



A verdict which the writer is able to concur in after 

 careful personal verification. It is impossible to conceive 

 how these marks on the most exposed part of the surface of 

 the rock could have been mistaken for those of fossils, the 

 more so when it is considered that no such marks, even 

 if real, could have withstood the ravages and the potent 

 effects of weathering and chemical decomposition, which 

 would have obliterated them altogether. As pointed out by 

 Campbell, " to a given depth the gneiss is daily heated to 

 100° or more. At night it cools. Expansion and contraction 

 produce something like cleavage on a crackle cup. Mechani- 

 cal and chemical action of rain and air makes the surface 

 crumble."! As an appropriate conclusion to this subject- 

 so brimful of interest to geologists — I would quote the words 

 of Dr. William King, late of the Geological Survey of India, 

 brother of Mr. iElian Armstrong King, Government Agent 

 of the North-Western Province : — 



It is difficult to tell why there are no fossils in your metamorphic 

 rocks. There may have been very little life at the time of their 

 formation, and that of the lowest forms, and these may have been 

 obliterated by metamorphism or so altered that nothing but the 

 result of their chemical decomposition now remains, e.g., this graphite. 

 I do not think age would have anything to do with the obliteration of 

 vegetable structure, if it ever existed ; metamorphism (which includes 

 a tremendous lot of forces, chemical and otherwise) is quite sufficient.^ 



* Appendix of Proceedings of Meeting-. Journal, C.B.R.A.S.. No. 5. 

 1849-50, pp. 336, 337. 



f "My Circular Notes," vol. II., pp. 186, 187. 



% Letter of Dr. King to the late Mr. A. M. Ferguson : appendix to his 

 Monograph on Plumbago, Journal, C.B.R.A.S., No. 31, 1885. Dr. Kelaart 

 writes : " The limestone in which the Ceylon fossils are imbedded is of a 

 very compact and pure form. In one hand specimen we observed a fossil 

 phalange about an inch in length, apparently of a large Saurian reptile. 

 This unique specimen is now in the Museum of the Asiatic Society of 

 Ceylon." — Prodromus Fauna; Zeylanicce, p. x. 



