876 THE TUOPICAL AGRICULTURIST [Jcke 1, 1899. 
all over is reached. For Kelburne a 
crop of well under 'J<X) lb. an acre wius only 
got for 1898 ; but for the current j ear the 
estimate is about 4U01b. an aeie at a cost 
f.o.b. of :«-07 cents per lb. Finally, the Tea 
Corporation, Limited, issues a s[)(!cial cir- 
cular as to prospects which is of a decidedly 
satisfactory character, even if the phunba^o 
anticipations come to nothuig. 
CEYLON TEA AT PARIS EXHIBITION; 
AND ON THE CONTINENT OF 
EUROPE. 
Mr. Renton is a fortunate Colomst : for, 
not only is he to have the Planting Com- 
missionership to the Exhll)itioii, but a fee 
of £500 for the duties to be performed. After 
the Exhibition closes, his throe vears' engage- 
ment as Commissioner for th(; Continent 
on £1,0(M) a year will commence. All (liis 
we gather from the proceedings of the 
"Thirty Committee " given eLsewhere in full. 
Apparently the (Commissioner is to treat 
with Messrs. Lipton, Limited, about some 
proposal for .advertising Ceylon teas or 
produce? Meantime, it will be .seen that 
the independent efforts to i)romote Ceylou 
tea in Russia, Germany, <fec., are by no mejiiis 
slackening, but that due encouragement 
continues to be given. AH this should bear 
fruit. 
THE MINERAL WEALTH OF CEYLON. 
THE VIEWS OF AN EXPERT. 
Mr. C L Boyd, a gold expert, is now on a 
visit to his brother, Mr. Eoltoii Boyd, of Agais 
Land, and he has taken the opportunity to^ in- 
quire into the mineral wealth of Ceylon. What 
was wanted, he s.iid, to one of our rejiresentatives, 
was to find gold in the low grade condition, on the 
same principle as the Mysore mines are, which 
are among tha best paying concerns in the 
world. In those mines they had a homogeneous 
rock in which was found the precious metal and 
the value per ton would figure the same through- 
out the vein. The ore in this low grade condition 
is valued at 10s per ton and upwards, and was 
much better security than those Hash mines 
where nuggets were found. These would run to 
thousands of pounds per ton intermittently, 
but one could never be sure that he 
would continue to find them. Mr. Boyd has 
just returned from Matara and in answer to a 
query whether he had found gold there he ans- 
wered: — Yes, sir, I have most decidedly." 
TEA AND METALS. 
Mr. Boyd said that what helped the growth 
of tea were the metallic constituents in the 
ground and in other tea countries such as China 
and Japan they found iron. Ferric oxide M as a 
very important factor in the growth of tea. " Yuu 
have it there," said Mr. Boyd, pointing to the 
red road outside the hotel "and it is in the tea 
districts in larger quantities." 
In Ceylon they had limonite (iron) which ran 
up to 52 to 60 per cent of metallic iron and he had 
found 7r62 per cent of oxide of iron deposited 
in the ground. Mr. Boyd reported satisfactorily of 
the plumbago in the Miitara district. That place 
waa on the centre of the 
MINHnAL BELT OF CETLOK, 
a great belt which ran north 20 degrees east. 
Mr. Boyd visits Nuvvara Eliya tor the pur- 
pose of reporting on plumbago, mica and iron, 
and hopes, when he reluru>i, to liave something 
favourable to tell. He mentioned that he liad 
opened negocialions with i>eo|»le iu Liverpool with 
a view to getting out the necessary machinery for a 
Btaraping mill on the reef he lias discovered. He 
would suggest that Government tliould start a 
Geological Department with expert* at the head to 
make a survey of the country, seeing the value 
minerals would be through the ro^'alty they 
would bring in. He prophesied that in a isliort 
time people would Hock into the country after 
ff'ia. ^ 
TIMBEH .SEASONING BY ELECTRICITY. 
We extract the following from the Engineer : — Dariof.' 
the last few years considerable attention has been 
given to the invention of new proceasea for treatioK 
timber. The latest aspirant to fame is a process aud 
apparatus which claims to give to timber properties 
which time alone has so far been able to producet 
It is a French idea, and has, we are informed, me. 
with considerable success in Paris, where works 
have been established to treat timber on a large 
scale. The Nodon-liretonueau process involves the 
expulsion of the sap and its replacement by a 
solid matter, insoluble and aseptic. This is effected by 
placing the material to be treated in a vat containing a 
lukewarm solation made of borax, ten per cent ; resin 
five per cent ; and 75 per cent of carbonate of soda. 
While in this bath, an electric current of about lUO 
volts pressure is caused to pass through the timber. 
The current set up what is termed electro-capillary 
attraction, and drives out the sap by the introduction 
of the solation. This treatment lasts from six to 
eight hours generally, after which the wood is 
subjected to a further treatment of a few hours' 
duration in a warm bath to allow of thorough permea- 
tion of the entire section. It is then removed and 
dried under cover by air currents, a process which 
is said to take from fourteen days to a couple of 
months, according to the density and thickness of 
the material. The inventors claim that not only is 
a considerable saving in time and expense in the 
drying of timber effected by this process, but that 
certain classes of wood, such as maritime pine, which 
have not hitherto been readily saleable owing to the 
large amount of moisture they contain, can by its 
use be readily deprived of the sap. The expenditure 
of electric current is said to be 600 watts per cubic 
metre per hour for five hours. The Electric Timber 
Seasoning Company, Victoria Street, Westminster, 
is introducing the system into this country, and a 
model apparatus has been fitted up at the works of 
Messrs. Johnson and Philips, Charlton Junction. 
The Galaha Tea Estates Company is to 
be congratulated on the very .satisfaetorj' nature 
of the report made on its estates. The Vedehettes, 
Kitoolamoola and Galaha have been familiar to 
us since the early "sixties" and we had no 
idea they were going to do so well in tea ; while 
the news of a care road all the way from Ooda- 
wella to Kitoolamoola — superseding the bridle 
path which at one point was the scene of one of 
the most atrocious murders ever committed in 
Ceylon — recalls "days of old " and of more than 
one ride across the Hantane range and patanas. 
But it is of tea, we have to speak. Crops of 
over 40O lb. and rising to 000 .ind even 700 lbs. per 
acre, must be considered very good. What is 
told of the Factory is of interest and specially so 
what we learn about wire-shoots and economic 
Morking. 
