162 CEYLON PEARL FISHERIES.
Hence
the pearls and seed are send to all parts of the world. This is all I
know of this fishery. But I must not forget to add that pieces of amber of a considerable size are also found on this coast. Great branches of coral also drift ashore when the sea is high; the black kind is better and more esteemed than the red.
CEYLON PEARL FISHERIES.
(From the Horible Geo. Vane's Report, to Governor Sir Henry Ward, 28th February, 1863.)
Pearl
Banks are believed to extend all along the N. W. Coast from Negombo to
Mannar, and the' charts and records contain the names and positions of
19 banks, but the larger portion of them have never yielded fisheries
either to the Dutch or English Governments. The Condatchy Paar having
only been fished in 1801, the Chilaw Paars in 1803 and 1815, the
Karativo in 1S32, and the Peri Paar Karrai in 1833, 1S35, and 1836, so
that the Cheval and Modragam have been heretofore, as now, the sources
from whence the large, although precarious Pearl Revenues have been
derived; and, judging from the results of the inspections I made in
March 1862 of the entire coast and known banks between Negombo and
Jaffna, I believe the general productiveness of the Cheval and
Modragam is mainly attributable to their position being within the
Karativo shoal, a means, especially the Modragam, of protection from
the influences of weather and currents,—causes to which are attributed
the frequent disappearance, before arriving at maturity, of beds of
young oysters formed in other banks. But there may also be other causes
to account for these two banks alone rearing oysters to maturity;
possibly the ground is favourable for the settling of the spawn, or
affords good feeding; if so, and I believe this to be another essential
of these banks; then the, young oysters formed on other banks may find
their way to the Cheval or Modragam, and in this manner I believe the
latter banks to have been recently supplied with a portion of the
oysters now thereon, from the Karativo Paar, which on October i860, was
well filled with young oysters that could not be found at the
inspection of March 1862.
Notwithstanding
that many long lapses have occurred between each series of fisheries,
the Arippo banks have yielded very large revenues to the Dutch and
English Governments ; they were fished by the Dutch so far back as
1667, and with intervals gave fisheries up to 1768. This was the last
under the Dutch, as a period of 2S years then .passed without a fishery.
The
Cheval Paar and Modragam are (as detailed in my Inspection Reports of
November 1861 and April 1862,) abundantly, I may say, enormously
stocked with oysters of an age that give the almost certain prospect of
arriving at maturity. The Cheval Paar yielded during 1855, 1857, '858,
and 1859, 60,000,000 oysters, the fishing for many days in 1857 being
from one million to one-and-a-half million. The extent of ground then
covered was very much less than the present, and consisted of three
separate patches or beds; now, an extent of ground over four miles long
and one-and-a-half broad, is all fairly covered, excepting one small
intervening space and should yield, at the lowest estimate, one hundred
and fifty million oysters.
The
Modragam yielded 12,000,000 of oysters at the fisheries of 1S59 and
i860. The ground now covered is much larger, being over a mile square,
and more abundantly stocked, and should therefore now fish some twenty
millions. Thus, my estimate of the present condition of these two banks
is one hundred and seventy millions of oysters. Of course, before they
can be fished, natural decay will materially reduce this quantity; but
comparing their extent and stock with 1855 and i860, I see every ground
for believing, unless circumstances not now fairly to be anticipated
should prevent it, that
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