rough ore produces from thirty to seventy-five per cent., and on an average fully fifty. The
iron wrought from it requires no puddling, and, converted into steel,
it cuts like a diamond. The metal could be laid down in Colombo at £6 per ton, even supposing the ore to be brought thither for smelting, and prepared with English coal; but anthracite being
found upon the spot, it could be used in the proportion of three to one
of the British coal; and the cost correspondingly reduced."
Remains
of ancient furnaces are met with in all directions precisely similar to
those still in use amongst the natives. The Singhalese obtain the ore
they require without the trouble of mining; seeking a spot where the
soil has been loosened by the latest rains, they break off a sufficient
quantity, which, in less than three hours, they convert into iron by
the simplest possible means. None of their furnaces are capable of
smelting more than twenty pounds of ore, and yet this quantity yields
from seven to ten pounds of good metal.
The anthracite alluded to by Dr. Gygax is found in the southern range of hills near Nambepane, in close proximity to rich veins of phimbaifo, which
are largely worked in the same district, and the quantity of the latter
annually exported from Ceylon exceeds a thousand tons, (a) Molybdena is
found in profusion dispersed through many rocks in Saffragam, and it
occurs in the alluvium in grey scales, so nearly resembling plumbago as
to be commonly mistaken for it. Kaolin, called by the natives Kiritnattie, appears
at Nuwara Eliya, at Hewahette, Kadugannawa, and in many of the higher
ranges as well as in the low country near Colombo; its colour is so
clear as to suit for the manufacture of porcelain (b); but the
difficulty and cost of carriage render it as yet unavailing for
commerce and the only use to which it has hitherto been applied is to
serve for whitewash instead of lime.
Nitre has
long been known to exist in Ceylon, where the localities in which it
occurs are similar to those in Brazil. In Saffragam alone there are
upwards of sixty caverns known to the natives, from which it may be
extracted, and others exist in various parts of the island, where the
abundance of wood to assist in its lixiviation would render that
process easy and profitable. Yet so sparingly has this been hitherto
attempted; that even for purposes of refrigeration, crude saltpetre is
still imported from India, (c)
