72 



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



is extracted, but whether it is nickeliferous in Ceylon it is 

 difficult to say. Steatite or soapstone, which, if it occurs in 

 masses, might be worked into ornaments, plates, cups, 

 and saucers as in Bengal. Magnetite (feroso-feno oxide), 

 showing strong polarity, and which may perhaps be found 

 to be a richer ore of iron than the " black sea sand " of the 

 coast, which experts thought some five and twenty years 

 ago could not be remuneratively worked. Chalcopyrite, 

 containing such rare elements as Columbian or niobium 

 and yttrium, zirconium, mica, gold, and numberless other 

 minerals. 



If these metals and minerals which are found in association 

 with plumbago occur to any appreciable or rather workable 

 extent, how many valuable additions might we not have to 

 our local arts and manufactures, and even to our exports ; and 

 may be, some day we shall hear of metallurgical operations 

 in the Island, and of gold, nickel, and manganese and iron 

 being extracted from their ores ! 



Gems. 



Beyond the garnets and amethysts* which are common 

 in the gneiss, cinnamon stone, which is properly a variety 

 of the former, rock crystal, and tourmaline, and a number 

 of others of no great value, this Province is sadly deficient 

 in gems. 



Salts. 



Nitre Caves. — Davy enumerates the following places 

 in this Province in which saltpetre is produced and in which 

 it has been manufactured. The names are said to be — 



not those of the nitre caves themselves, which are generally nameless, 

 but of the nearest inhabited places, which are in many instances 

 several miles remote, most of the caves being situated in the wildest 

 and most deserted parts of the country : — 



* Davy found " very beautiful specimens of this mineral in the alluvium 

 derived from the decomposition of gneiss and granitic rock in Saffragam 

 and the Seven Korles"— Page 20. 



