NO. 48. — 1897.] GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 59 



the public that the Governor (Sir George Anderson) was 

 pleased to appoint T. C. Power, Esq., Assistant Government 

 Agent of Kurunegala, to be " Special Commissioner for the 

 issue of licenses to dig, search for, and remove gold on any 

 land belonging to the Crown." A fee of ten shillings was 

 to be charged for every such license, which was to remain 

 in force for one month from the date of issue. These 

 notifications were manifestly too premature, and no wonder 

 that not one single license was applied for ! 



In addition to the Gold Commissioner and the Superin- 

 tendent of Police, a posse of the local constabulary and a 

 section of the Ceylon Rifles were stationed at the "diggings," 

 which, from being the undisturbed haunt of the alligator, 

 at once rose from its primeval solitude into a busy and 

 "fashionable watering-place ! " A piece of gold was produced 

 before Mr. Power by a headman, who reported to have 

 found it at Dambadeniya, eight miles above the " diggings." 

 Dr. Ellery pronounced the gold to be without alloy. 



The quantity produced at the " diggings " was, however, 

 small, but the diggers were sanguine of success, and were 

 making preparations for working on a more extensive scale, 

 when a combination of adverse circumstances, chief among 

 them being violent thunderstorms, floods, and jungle fever, 

 conspired towards the abandonment of the enterprise. 

 Curiously enough the neighbourhood of the " diggings " was 

 the spot where Davy closed his series of journeyings in the 

 interior, one of the results of which, he declared with a show 

 of scientific authority, was, that no gold existed in Ceylon ! 



In 1881 Mr. A. C. Dixon— 



" met with gold in scattered grains, free by natural causes from its 

 matrix, in the alluvium of the Deduru-oya beyond Kurunegala. The 

 particles were exceedingly small, and other metallic matters were not 

 uncommon. This must have come from the quartz reef further up 

 the hills."* 



" Gold in Ceylon," Journal, C.B.R.A.S., 1881. 



