Sufykmnt to the "Tvopiial Agriculturist? [November t, 1889 
results of the recognition of improved methods, the 
15 weeks' supply during the growth of the crop is 
ODly required. 
And lastly, in transplanting, a still less amount of 
water is required. For a five months' crop only 12 
weeks' water supply is necessary, as no water is re- 
quired for the month the plants are in the nursery. 
Therefore when four weeks are deducted the amount 
is reduced to 11 weeks' water supply, but adding a 
week for the little water required in the nursery the 
total will count to 12 weeks' supply. 
The quantities of water required for the 3 systems 
will then stand as follows: — 
18 weeks' supply for ordinary cultivation. 
15 » » „ dry „ 
12 „ „ „ transplanted paddy. 
This shows that transplanting will require 33 per 
cent less water than is ordinarily required, and this 
saving is of no little importance in many] districts 
where the supply of water is limited and where many 
fields depend on one source. 
(To be continued.) 
NOTES ON SOME OF THE GEOLOGICAL 
FORMATIONS IN CEYLON. 
By C. Dbieberg, b.a., f.h.a.s. 
Sandstone belongs to that class of rocks which has 
had an aqueous origin. It is made up of small particles 
of fand, tor the most part consisting of silica, agglu- 
tinated eitber by great pressure, by means of percolat- 
ing acidu'ated water which dissolves and redeposits 
part of the materials composing the sand, by fusion, 
or lastly through the medium of some foreign 
substance in solution in water, commonly carbonate 
of lime, which acts as a cemwit. Often, however, the 
grains do not consist of pure silica, but particles of 
felspatio rocks, pieces of mica, and sometimes shelly 
debt is are found mixed up in the mass. Again a 
large proportion of clay may be found in combination 
with the particles of sand. The texture of the rock 
varies greatly from the finest to the coarsest. This 
is often well seen in a deep cutting where the topmost 
layers may be very fine grained and gradually merge 
into coarse and coarser varieties. The commonest 
colours of sandstone are grey, white, and red, though 
the dark variety is not rarelyseen. The whiter varie- 
ties contain milky and clear quartz granules, the red 
colour of some sandstones being due to the presence 
of peroxide of iron, brown and yellow to the hydrous 
peroxide. The grey-blue colour of others are on 
exposure to the air, turned to brown or yellow, owing 
to the oxidation of the iron present. 
Among the commoner varieties of sandstone are 
freestone, which is of a homogeneous character, and 
workable in any direction, being used much for build- 
ing purposes : flagstone, mure or less argillaceous and 
laid down in beds out of which they are worked and 
used for pavin? : greensand, which owes its colour to 
a mineral cailed glauconite: and Carbonaceous sandstone, 
containing organic matter, and generally of a dark or 
black colour. Where the agglutinat' d particles are 
tolerably large in size the sandstone passes into a grit; 
and the size increasing further still, the rock is charac- 
terised as a conglomerate. \ 
Sandstone almost completely surrounds the Island 
along the coast, forming horizontal beds which are 
however much disturbed and fractured in certain places. 
The variety is not perfectly unifornP- being sometimes 
of a light and again of a dark co\ our — tne cementing 
medium being almost always carbonate of lime, which 
in the darker varieties is mixed wit-h iron. The pre- 
sence of carbonate of iron as the cementing medium 
is < asily pro M-d by hea'ing a piece \f sandstone rock 
with Hydrochloric acid when the rock wreaks up and falls 
into a loose mass of sand. J 
the formation of sandstone as well 19 the limestones 
of the North must no doubt be explait ie d by the theory 
Which Mr. Nevnl of the Oeylon Clivil Service has 
endeavoured to prove in a paper writt sn for the Ceylon 
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society'; vlz -> * na * tne 
Islands subject to secular movement, f that it is in fact 
undergoing a process of gradual elevation. This is no 
wild hypothesis, as the phenomenon has been observed 
and the rate of elevation recorded in various places 
in Europe, notably on the coast of Norway. On the 
coast of Scotland the raised beaches extending in a 
spries from 25 to 100 feet are a standing evidence of 
the fact, and such beaches are to be observed in our 
Island too, though they are not too apparent. The 
white sand of the cinnamon lands about Colombo are 
undoubtedly of aqueous origin, and of tolerably recent 
formation as evidences go to show. A peculiar bluish- 
black sand may be often observed on the sea-shore of 
our coast. This is composed of titaniferous iron 
(Tlurenite, an oxide of iron and titanium) and magne- 
tite (ferroso-ferric oxide), the insoluble residue of 
igneous rocks. From Pamunugame, situated on the 
canal route between C olombo and Negombo is a bed 
of sandstone which is worked principally for the manu- 
facture of filters. 
AGRICULTURAL SUPERSTITIONS, in. 
By E. T. Hoole. 
When we inquire into the origin of these superstitious 
practices and notions, we shall find that at first many 
of them were devoid of the superstitious character, 
and, as I said in concluding my last paper, were cun- 
ningly or even wisely invented. Take for instance 
the belief in blight by the ' evil eye ' and ' evil 
tongue,' What a knowledge of human nature is here 
wrapped up ! Of course there is no truth in the super- 
stition as it obtains among the present generation of 
native farmers and gardeners. There is no ' evil eye ' 
which can produce blight on well-growing crops by its 
mere look. I know however of the covetous eye and 
the envious eye, — the eyes of the man who contem- 
plates stealing his neighbour's crops, and the eyes of 
him who cannot bear to see another's crop thriving, 
and therefore tries to injure it. 
How attractive does a tree laden with ripe fruits 
appear to a light-fiDgered man ! To allow him the 
chance of a sharp close look at the fruits would 
amount to tempting him to covet and steal them. 
But on the other hand it would wound the feelings of 
the man to let him know that the gardener has appre- 
hensions about his honesty, and would not, for that 
reason, give him the chance of a visit to the orchard. 
As a cunning and easy alternative, therefore, in such 
cases ancient farmers and gardeners devised the super- 
stitious notion about the ' evil eye ' and gave publicity to 
it, so that it might have a common application. 
The other class of evil-eyed men are the envious. 
When they get the opportunity of eyeing a very fruit- 
ful field or garden their envy is excited, and they try 
to do it some damage or other. The narration, in the 
Biblical parable, of the enemy sowing tares in his 
neighbour's wheat-field is not without its counterpart 
in the world of facts. 
As a proof of the explanation I have here given about, 
the origin of 'evil-eye' theory, I may point out that, 
even to this day, it is those who betray feelings of 
covetousness or envy upon looking at some good thing 
belonging to their fellow-creatures, that are especially 
marked down and dreaded as evil-eyed- 
Then again the superstitious notion about the ' evil 
tongue ' seems to have been invented in order to pre- 
vent an admirer rousing up the above feelings in by- 
standers. When a man expresses his admiration of 
some crop, he attracts the notice of others and makes 
it a mark for the rogue and the ill-willed man. The 
safest course would be to let the plants grow unnoticed 
and hidden from human view as much as possible. 
Hence also has arisen the common custom of thatch- 
ing garden fences with cadjans. A stick fence how- 
ever strong is not considered sufficient ; and the inevit- 
able palm leaves have alwa)scome into requisition 
for covering the fence. While at Guile, I had an 
intelligent Jail Guard at the heard of the gang of 
prisoners sent to the Experimental Garden ; and he was 
somewhat imbued with the agricultural superstitions 
