4o6 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[December x, 1890 ^ 
It is believed that, apart from the general good to all 
Oeylou Tea Growers and to the whole Island that will 
result from the undertaking, dividends will be earned 
by the Company when fully established. 
Agencies will be opened in various cities throughout 
the world as opportunity offers : — 
London, Colombo, England, Scotland, Wales, Aus- 
tria (Vienna), Belgium (Brussels), France (Paris), 
Germany (Berlin), Russia (Moscow), Turkey in 
Europe (Constantinople), Australia (Melbourne), New 
Zealand (Dunedin), Tasmsnia. 
We do not see why every Teagrower in the country 
should not be a shareholder, for he might in this 
Company expect a fair dividend for his invest- 
ment as well as the indirect benefit sure to result 
to the Ceylon Tea Trade at large. 
^ 
CAN THE COLOURS OF CORAL BE 
BRESERVED. 
Such is the tenour of a query addressed to us 
by a correspondent, and it is one to which we do 
not feel justified in giving a positively negative 
answer in view of all that is being accom- 
plished in the present day. We believe that 
efforts have been made to secure permanence to 
the vivid colour which distinguishes corals when 
viewed in their native habitat, but we are unable to 
inform our querist as to the degree of success 
which has attended such efforts. It is suggested 
that as after much experimenting, it has been 
found possible to fix the fugitive colours both 
of grasses and flowers — and in this connec- 
tion attention is directed to the marvellously 
preserved grasses. &c., with which many of 
the cases of stuffed birds in the Museum of 
Natural History at South Kensington are provided 
— it might be found possible by some methods 
akin to those by which that result has been 
attained, to accomplish what is now desired, namely, 
the rendering permanent the colours which are so 
resplendent among corals when viewed from a beat 
and during their natural growth. Were these 
colours natural to, and inherent in, the corals 
themselves, as they are in grasses and flowers, it 
would seem as if this suggestion might not be 
wholly wide of the mark ; but we believe it to 
be the fact that the resplendency to be seen while 
corals are in growth in situ is due, not to any pig- 
ment contained in the formation of the corals, but 
to the animalculic which encrust them. These 
die almost immediately on exposure to the air, 
and the vivid colouring which charms so greatly 
when viewed through the medium of sea water 
almost entirely disappears when the coral is raised 
to the surface. 
This is, we believe, the fact as regards all the 
coral found growing in Indian waters. At the 
same time we are aware that the fishers of the 
Mediterranean constantly obtain specimens, both 
of pink, red, blue and yellow coral, which stand 
the test of exposure and form the material from 
which the very lovely ornaments, sold chiefly in 
Naples and its neighbourhood, are prepared. Can 
any of our readers inform us as to whether the 
corals so worked up are subjected to any treat- 
ment preservative of their natural colour ? Our 
own impression is that they are not, and that the 
colouring pigment is inherent. If this impression 
be correct, it is difficult to conceive any reason 
why, among the many varieties of coral produced 
in Eastern waters, there should not be some at 
least poEseBsed of this quality of natural perma- 
nence. No one who has once visited the lovely 
submarine gardens to bo seen off the shores around 
the island of Ramesvaram and in or near to 
Ualle harbour can fail to retain reoollootion of 
them as “ a thing of beauty and a joy for 
ever.” We have no hesitation in declaring that 
a view of these is ample repayment for a journey 
expressly made to their locality, and we really 
believe that an excursion trip organized by one 
or other of our steam launch proprietors would 
receive patronage and the cost of it be productive 
of no disappointment to those sharing in it. 
This, however, is but a secondary matter. The 
point just nov/ is whether it might be possible 
to perpetuate the splendour of such submarine 
gardens. If this were possible, we are assured 
that the fringes of our shores would furnish a 
harvest certain of great remunerative appreciation 
at home. The much prized pink coral of the 
Mediterranean fetches, we are told, more than 
three times its weight in gold for the more 
sought-after shades of colour. Even sup- 
posing that, as mentioned above, the colours 
are due to living animaleuliE rather than to the 
coral itself, the question naturally suggests 
itself whether it would be wholly impossible to 
preserve these coloured creatures upon the coral 
and so perpetuate the beauty — the extreme 
beauty— of its appearance. Of grass we are 
told by the Psalmist that “ in the morning 
it flourisheth and groweth up : in the even- 
ing it is cut down and withereth.” This, 
however, has been falsified in a sense, for the 
grasses at South Kensington above referred to, look 
as fresh and as lovely as if still growing upon 
their native soil. Is it looking forward too much, 
or placing too great faith in the scientists of this 
advancing age, to hope that some similar method 
of treatment might be as successfully applied to 
submarine as to super-terrannean gardens ! Granted 
that the conditions of growth and the basis of 
formation are altogether different in the two cases ; 
still in the one decay is but arrested, and such a 
principle does not seem to be wholly inapplicable 
to the other. We have seen fishes preserved by Mr. 
Haly with their natural brilliancy of colour retained. 
It would not, therefore, seem to be wholly irra- 
tional to hope that means similar to those employed 
in their instance might solve the query in reference 
to the corals which so freely surround us in this 
island. On the other hand we are bound to recall the 
fact that some time ago an Italian who was very 
eager to oommence fishing off our coast for colored, 
if not pink coral, was discouraged by the then 
comparatively plentiful supply available in Europe. 
Has this been worked off and is the price really as 
high as has been indicated to us above,— are 
questions we should like to see answered autho- 
ritatively 
# 
Coffee. — An anonymous correspondent in the 
Jornal do Commercio of the 28th ult. says ; — “ Trust- 
worthy advices from the states of Rio, Minas and 
S. Paulo give the future crop (coffee) as without 
equal ; the trees are so covered with blossoms that 
they appear to be sheets, and from the appearance 
of the buds a much heavier blossom is expected 
in the months of September and October .” — Rio 
News. 
A man here has applied for a patent to petrify 
clay walls and publishes the formula in the Dm?'?o 
Official of the 23rd. It is : in 100 litres of water 
dissolve 1 kilogramme of shell lime, 1 kilogramme 
of Jarjgerij sugar and 1 kilogramme of caths, what- 
ever that is. Mix your clay with the mixture and 
set up your walls. Perhaps some of our Ceylon 
friends will tell us what caths is ? — Rio News. [The 
word is, of course a corruption of Icahata astringont 
fruit,— Ec. T. A.] 
