44 
SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
TWO FRAGMENTS. 
By James Parsons, B.Sc., F.G.S. 
With an Introductory Note. 
[Nearly twenty yea*rs ago it was my fortune to spend some months 
in the little fishing village of Peloro Faro near Messina, studying the 
development of an archaic type of fish of very small size, called the 
lancelet. On December 28 last this place, sol am told, shared the 
ruin wrought by the Messina earthquake. On the following day, 
December 29, my friend Mr. J. Parsons went out for a short walk 
in the open country at Nuwara Eliya, in order to examine an 
exposure of country rock on a tea estate. Such exposures can, as a 
rule, only be observed satisfactorily in the open; and the jungle which 
surrounds a clearing has little or no attraction for a geologist. From 
my personal acquaintance with him, extending over five years, I can 
well believe that he was cool, methodical, and cautious. 
He left his hotel at 10 o’clock in the morning intending to return 
for luncheon. On such a trifling excursion he did not require an 
attendant. About noon he was seen walking through the tea on the 
Oliphant estate, and the spot is pointed out wht 5 he was last seen, 
“ durai kanda veddam.” From that hour and place every trace 
vanishes, and no effort of the imagination can pierc the darkness 
which swallowed him up. It is even impossible to make reasonable 
suggestions. Almost any suggestion which can be made has to 
be rejected. But there is one sinister circumstance attending the 
disappearance. Night and day following the rain fell incessantly, 
five inches on the first day, four inches on the second. During this 
distressing time all the available forces of the countryside, headed 
by Brigadier-General B. C. B. Lawrence, scoured the hills, ravines, 
forests, and streams of the neighbourhood in vain. 
The search was continued for weeks subsequently ; experienced 
trackers were employed and rewards offered, but so far not a shred 
of evidence has been obtained. There are formidable stretches of 
jungle between the Great Western mountain and Pidurutalagala 
affording plenty of opportunity for getting lost; but this was not his 
destination. 
I have elsewhere compared the jungle with the desert and the 
high sea, and it is on an occasion such as this that the aptness 
of the comparison becomes apparent. In the jungle beyond Oli¬ 
phant. there is a habitable cave with traces of comparatively recent 
occupation. Round about it the trees are draped with luxuriant 
festoons of mosses and scattered orchids, the kind of wild place 
which an orchid collector might visit with prospects of success. So 
hidden is this cave in the heart of the jungle that, although it is not 
far from the tea, it was unknown to the Superintendent of the 
adjoining estare. 
Parsons came out to Ceylon in 1902 as Assistant to his college 
friend Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy to undertake a Mineralogical 
