THE 
MONTHLY 
Vol. IX. 
COLOMBO, AUGUST ist, 1889. 
LNo. 2. 
MB. STBEETER ON OUE ISLAND GEMS 
The Peospect before a Ceylon Gemming 
Company. 
HE conversation had by our 
London Correspondent with 
Mr. Streeter and reported by 
him in his letter by last mail 
will have been perused with 
interest by the many among 
our readers who have con- 
sidered the question of undertaking a local 
search for gems on a more systematic 
method than has hitherto been pursued. The 
rush for shares when the Burma Buby Mines 
Company was brought out, evidenced how highly 
such a form of undertaking is regarded by home 
capitalists, and it certainly seemed to many of us 
when that Company was commenced— and does still 
seem to us — that a soil so rich in its yield of 
precious stones as is that of certain localities in 
this island should not be left without a similar 
endeavour to develop its latent wealth. 
We can, however, readily appreciate the distinc- 
tion drawn by Mr. Streeter between the basis 
upon which success has been obtained for the 
Burma Buby Mines Company so successfully 
floated under influential auspices, and that 
upon which Ceylon could, according to his 
view, at present appeal for similar financial 
support. It is Mr. Streeter's view, that, until 
we can place ourselves in a like position with 
that achieved in Burma, until we can locate the 
matrix which yields our island gems, an 
appeal to the British public can meet with no 
satisfactory response. Before considering the 
several points advanced by Mr. Streeter, it may 
be of interest to refer to the qualifica'ions 
of that gentleman to speak with authority on the 
subject. The son of one of the chief men in the 
London jewellery trade, he has been trained from 
boyhood as an expert in the study of precious stones. 
We may be assured, therefore, that he ia well- 
qualified to judge of their value and of the position 
those which are found in Ceylon ocoupy in the Lon- 
don market in comparison with such as are found in 
other countries. Mr. Streeter, junior, is well-known 
in Ceylon (and we have had the pleasure of more 
than one interview with him), and in Western and 
Southern Australia as well as in Burma. He devoted 
considerable time— we believe as muoh as 
eight months on the occasion of his first 
visit to the island — to the examination of our local 
methods of Gemming, and has therefore had some 
experience to guide him in forming the opinions 
he expressed to our London Correspondent. It may 
first be noticed that that experience leads him to the 
condemnation of any enterprize which should be 
undertaken solely in the alluvial soil in which have 
been deposited the gems now found by local gem- 
diggers. But, while admitting a certain degree of 
force in the arguments upon which he bases 
that condemnation, we would ask: — Have not 
similar difficulties presented themselves in the 
case of diamond-mining in South Africa, and 
have these not been successfully overcome ? For 
we believe it is the case that the great Kimberley 
mining operations are conducted solely in the alluvial, 
and that it is in what is termed "blue stuff" 
that by far the larger proportion of diamonds 
obtained in South Africa is found. We know that 
at the place named the diggings are of prodigious 
depth and extent, and that the alluvial is suffi- 
ciently rich in yield to produoe large profits. It 
is an open question, of course, whether the 
similar deposits of our mountain streams in 
Sabaragamuwa — especially those of the Ratnapura 
and Rakwana rivers- -have anything like an 
equivalent depth. This could only be deter- 
mined by boring, and if examination by such a 
system was mad«, it would readily determine the 
question as to whether we in Ceylon might not 
profitably follow the example set in South Africa 
without having to await the ohance of a successful 
result to the course Mr. Streeter recommends, 
namely, a search for the matrix. 
