i8tj 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September 2, 1889. 
Company on the 28th February last will have elapsed 
before any substantial commencement has been made 
by the employees of the Company in Burma, and the 
probabilities are that a much longer period will be 
required to shew any appreciable monetary result. 
All that the Chairman could say by way of 
encouragement was " The prospects of the Company 
are not only as good, but distinctly better than 
when the prospeotus was issued. Nothing has 
occurred since then in any degree to shake my own 
confidence, or that of the Directors, in the future 
success of their exceedingly interesting enterprise, 
but the investors must have a little patience." 
In the position he held on the occasion, Sir 
Lepel Griffin could not well have said less, and 
these remarks are made only by way of show- 
ing under what immense difficulties the mining 
venture in Burma is being carried on, diffi- 
culties which mostly have no existence in 
Ceylon, and in such infinitesimal part as they 
are present are incomparably more easy to overcome 
than they would be in Burma, 
There is another small matter of considerable 
interest in this connection to which attention 
should be drawn. It will, no doubt, be remembered 
that Mr. Streeter at his interview with the 
London Correspondent of the Ceylon Observer laid 
very great stress on the fact (if fact it is) that in 
Burma the Company had discovered the matrix 
in which the rubies were originally formed, and had 
secured it for themselves, having thereby an immense 
advantage over any Company working in Ceylon, 
who could only operate on the alluvial deposits 
in and near the rivers, where they would have difficulty 
in securing any but scattered deposits of inferior 
value, inferior, however, not from want of quality, but 
from want of quantity. But when exhibiting his speci- 
mens, at the recent meeting of the Royal Institute he 
made the following statement :— "At present little 
is doing at the mines, but much machinery, al- 
ready on the ground, will be at work in October, 
and it is proposed that the river through Magok 
shall be first dredged, for there the rubies derived 
from wear and tear of the rocks must have been 
carried down for ages past ; the natives have not 
found many at that place, but with the aid of 
machinery large finds are anticipated." This state- 
ment is not one which should be lightly regarded, 
as it has a most important bearing on our con- 
tention respecting Ceylon. Although the Company 
has secured a monopoly of the matrix from which 
vast numbers of valuable gems are to be extracted, 
they are not going to take advantage of this source 
of immense wealth to enable them to make a 
magnificent beginning— but are content to dredge 
the alluvial deposit from whioh Mr. Streeter 
(in one breath as regards Ceylon) says no great 
value can be taken, and in the next as re- 
gards Burma "large finds are anticipated." 
Which of these two antagonistic opinions is the 
one in whioh he really believes needs no expression 
on our part — it would have looked more disinter- 
ested however had he abstained from giving ex- 
pression to that which is adverse to the proposi- 
tion for a Gemming Company for Ceylon. 
Still one point more calling for comment. 
Amongst the specimens exhibited at the Boyal Insti- 
tute were " samples of ruby in its matrix, which were 
therefore great curiosities and novelties. In one in- 
stance the matrix was of calospar associated with 
oxide of iron : the stone had evidently travelled from 
adistance and was waterworn." From this, one would 
naturally imagine that the matrix was waterworn, 
and consequently had not been found in situ but 
in an alluvial deposit. If on the other hand the 
ruby itself was waterworn the sooalled matrix 
was not a true one, possibly only a harder deposit 
of what in Ceylon is called "illan." This of course 
can only be decided by scientific men, and it will 
suffice to say that to an inquiry at Mandalay, as 
to what kind of a deposit it was in which the 
rubies were found and for which " crushing 
machinery" was necessary, the reply was to the 
effeot that it was " merely a hard clay." 
It would appear that little by little slowly but 
surely — proofs of what was advanced in the Observer 
of a month ago are gradually being drawn 
from the speeches of Mr. Streeter himself and 
Sir Lepel Griffin, and there can no longer exist 
any reasonable doubt that Ceylon offers an immensely 
superior field for Gemming operations to anything 
that can be found in Upper Burma at the present 
time, or will be for many years to come. There 
are many reasons which make it preferable for 
the Ceylon Gemming Enterprise that the Burma 
Company should be a successful one — and that 
handsome returns should accrue at an early date ; 
for should it be otherwise, people who are not 
aware of the facts of the case will be apt to say : 
" Look at the Burma Company — with every 
possible advantage and with all the eclat of a 
magnificent commencement, it has done nothing 
as yet, what then can be expected of a similar 
venture in Ceylon ? " If they could only be made 
acquainted with the truth of the case, the argu- 
ment would be the other way. 
PLUMBAGO AND GEM MINING IN CEYON. 
CAPITAL AND ENTERPRIZB WANTED. 
(From our Mining Correspondent,) 
Sabaragamuwa, 22nd July 1889. 
I send you a sample of what is to be found 
amongst the residue of washings out, as existing 
in the gemmers' baskets, which to the non-scien- 
tific explorer is a puzzle, and would afford a 
geological student any amount of study. The con- 
tents of the packet in my opinion afford ample 
proof of this island having undergone glacial action 
some time or other, and is sufficient to induce the 
Asiatic Society to undertake a strict geological survey 
of the country. In my travels I have come across the 
gem-yielding gravel, most of it of course far from 
being so rich as the present sample of washings 
represent, nearly all over the country, for some 
30 miles round about Katnapura, and in many 
places seams of black soft mica which if followed 
up leads to plumbago veins, which only requires 
a company with capital to work. * Plumbago you 
will find in this packet, which came out of the 
washings also, and is to be found in small quan- 
tities in most of the gem-pits opened. Some plum- 
bago pits are worked at Bakwana and some near 
Nambapana yielding handsome profits *o the owners, 
even with their narrowminded appliances and 
ancient method of working. Surely some of our 
Ceylon men at home could start a Plumbago and 
Gem Mining Company. 
A VALUABLE PIT AND PRIMITIVE METHODS. 
With regard to the former : I remember some years 
ago visiting a pit at Bagedara in Kurunegala district 
where a magnificent vein was being worked in the 
solid rock at a depth of about 200 ft., and all 
the material, stones, plumbago, water &c, was being 
handed up a ladder sort of arrangement from one 
man to another, from the bottom to the top, with- 
out one single modern mining piece of machine y. 
Trie vein was a magnificent one, about three 
* Will our correspondent have another look at the 
i« soft black mica," because some of the very finest 
plumbago is laminated after a fashion so closely re- 
sembling flakes of mica, that the natives believe in 
the transformation of mica into graphite!— Ed. 
