216 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. II., PART II. 



nor has clay-slate been seen in this Island, though its as- 

 sociate rocks are found in great abundance. Both are found 

 in extensive beds in Southern India, Regur, the black 

 cotton soil which covers nearly two-thirds of Southern India, 

 has not been noticed in Ceylon, and yet it is most probable 

 that all these three formations exist in some parts of the 

 Island, most likely in the northern districts. 



The only alluvial, or rather fluviatile, deposit in Ceylon 

 resembling in external characters the regur of India, is the 

 black soil of Nuwara Eliya and its neighbourhood ; with 

 this difference, however,— regur lies over a limestone gravel 

 and the blackish loam of Nuwara Eliya over a quartz gravel 

 with a substratum of clayey earths, formed of the litho- 

 margic hills and valleys over which the loam and gravel were 

 deposited. A deposit of gravel and loam has also been 

 observed on the Nilgiris, 6,000 ft. above sea-level. These 

 deposits of loam and gravel on the patanas and plains 

 of Nuwara Eliya are considered by casual observers to be 

 the decayed particles of the rocks in the immediate vicinity, 

 brought down by the rains. If this is their real nature, the 

 decomposed particles of the gneiss and quartzite, which 

 chiefly compose these existing rocks above the plains, could 

 not by any means have taken their present position of the 

 loam and gravel. The colour, too, of the decomposed parti- 

 cles would not be dark brown or black, but whitish or 

 yellowish. The loam and gravel lie so conformably on the 

 lithomargic surface of the hills and valleys that it is un- 

 reasonable to suppose that they were deposited from any 

 other source than from a large sheet of water.* The heavier 



* May not tbis account for the want of luxuriant vegetation on these 

 patanas, the water having washed and carried away to the lower 

 parts of the Island the alkalies and phosphates so necessary to plants ? 

 The black soil of Nuwara Eliya, however rich in appearances, requires 

 much manuring ; the best potatoes are the product of well-manured 

 grounds ; guano is as much required here as anywhere else. 



