416 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA 
[chap. XIX. 
whatever had more or less appearance of a precious stone. He 
then skimmed away with the palm of the hand the upper stratum 
of sand, and went on in the same way with that below it until 
the whole mass was examined. The certainty with which he 
judged in a moment whether there was anything of value among 
the many thousand grains of sand was wonderful. I endeavoured 
in a very considerable heap of the gravel thus hastily examined, 
to find a single small piece of precious stone which had escaped 
the glance of the examiner, but without success. 
The yield is very variable, sometimes abundant, sometimes 
very small, and though precious stones found in Ceylon are 
yearly sold for large sums, the industry on the whole is 
unjDrofitable, although now and then a favourite of fortune has 
been enriched by it. The English authorities, therefore, with 
full justification, consider it demoralising and unfavourable to 
the development of the otherwise abundant natural resources 
of the region. For the numerous loose population devotes itself 
rather to the easy search for precious stones, which is as exciting 
as play, than to the severer but surer labours of agriculture, and 
when at any time a rich find is made, it is speedily squandered, 
without a thought of saving for the times when the yield is 
little or nothing. A large number of the precious stones are 
polished at special polishing places at Katnapoora, but the work 
is very bad, so that the stones which come into the market are 
often irregular, and have uneven, curved, ill-polished surfaces. 
Most of them perhaps are sold in the Eastern and Western 
Indian peninsulas and other parts of Asia, but many are also 
exported to Europe. The precious stones which are principally 
found at Ratnapoora, consist of sapphires, commonly blue, but 
sometimes yellow or violet, sometimes even completely colour¬ 
less. In the last case they have a lustre resembling that of the 
diamond.^ Rubies I saw" here only in limited numbers. 
1 Diamonds are w anting in Ceylon. And neither gold nor platinum 
appears to occur in noteworthy quantity in the gem gravel. 
