the crown. This is a fair sample
of the narrow-minded, selfish policy of a government which, in
endeavoring to save a little, loses all; a miserable tampering with the
public in attempting to make a cat's paw of private enterprise.

How has this ended? The diggers left the island in disgust. If the
gold is there in quantity, there in quantity it remains to the present
time, unsought for. The subject of gold is so generally interesting,
and in this case of such importance to the colony, that, believing as I
do that it does exist in large quantities, I must claim the reader's
patience in going into this subject rather fully.

Let us take the matter as it stands.

The reader will remember that I mentioned at an early part of these
pages that gold was first discovered in Ceylon by the diggers in the
bed of a stream near Kandy--that they subsequently came to Newera
Ellia, and there discovered gold likewise.

It must be remembered that the main features of the country at Newera
Ellia and the vicinity are broad flats or swampy plains, surrounded by
hills and mountains: the former covered with rank grass and intersected
by small streams, the latter covered with dense forest. The soil
abounds with rocks of gneiss and quartz, some of the latter rose-color,
some pure white. The gold has hitherto been found in the plains only.
These plains extend over some thirty miles of country, divided into
numerous patches by intervening jungles.

The surface soil is of a peaty nature, perfectly black, soapy when wet,
and as light as soot when dry; worthless for cultivation. This top
soil is about eighteen inches thick, and appears to have been the
remains of vegetable matter washed down from the surrounding hills and
forests.

This swampy black soil rests upon a thin stratum of brownish clay, not
more than a few inches thick, which, forming a second layer, rests in
its turn upon a snow white rounded quartz gravel intermixed with white
pipe-clay.

This contains gold, every shovelful of earth producing, when washed,
one or more specks of the precious metal.

The stratum of rounded quartz is about two feet thick, and is succeeded
by pipe-clay, intermixed with quartz gravel, to a depth of eighteen
feet. Here another stratum of quartz gravel is met with, perfectly
water-worn and rounded to the size of a twelve-pound shot.

In this stratum the gold was of increased size, and some pieces were
discovered as large as small grains of