8 



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



raised in Ceylon is estimated on his authority as not exceed- 

 ing £10,000 ; and it is a suggestive fact that the province 

 that is richest in this source of wealth is one of the poorest 

 in the Island. Nor is this surprising when it is considered 

 that the soil that yields these precious treasures gives as 

 it were but one harvest, and that often at great cost, 

 whereas the husbandman reaps one or more crops every year 

 from the same field until its cumulative yield of grain 

 infinitely outweighs in value the one precarious crop of 

 gems that may or may not reward the gemmer's toil. 



All that has been said of gems and precious metals as a 

 source of wealth applies equally to pearls. These all, how- 

 ever valuable as adjuncts, fail to fulfil the conditions required 

 of primary resources capable of superseding agriculture as 

 the main spring of national wealth. 



Having now shown that other resources, independently of 

 systematic agriculture, could not have sufficed for the attain- 

 ment or maintenance of the order of things that prevailed 

 when Wijayo ruled in Ceylon, it remains to show that in 

 that agency, which Tennent denied, the whole may be easily 

 and naturally accounted for. 



In the first of these Papers it was demonstrated that 

 wealth is th# surplus product of labour over and above what 

 is necessary to provide for the labourers the necessaries of 

 life, food, shelter, and raiment. The surplus, represented by 

 the conditions proved in the Second Paper, must therefore 

 have arisen after providing for the wants, not only of the 

 labourers themselves, but also for those of a host of priests 

 and monks and the retinue of the court, besides supplying all 

 the numerous services requisite for the maintenance of a 

 regal state. 



The foregoing argument of the present Paper seems to 

 leave no doubt that the ancient industry, by means of which 

 the advanced condition of the Island had been attained, was 

 agriculture, seeing that no alternative means is tenable. On 

 the other hand, on this hypothesis all the results for which 

 it is necessary to account flow naturally in obedience to laws 



