Such was the uncertainty thrown over the geography of the island by erroneous and conflicting accounts, that grave doubts came to be entertained of its identity, and from the fourteenth century, when the attention of Europe was re-directed to the nascent science of geography, down to the close of the seventeenth, it remained a question whether Ceylon or Sumatra was the Taprobane of the Greeks.1 published at Venice in A.D. 1576, laments his inability even at that time to obtain any authentic information as to the boundaries and dimensions of Ceylon; and, relying on the representations of the Moors, who then carried on an active trade around its coasts, he describes it as lying under the equinoctial line, and possessing a circuit of 2100 miles. Ella gira di circuito, secondo il calcole fatto da Mori, che modernamente l'hanno nauigato d'ogn' intorno due mila et cento miglia et corre maestro e sirocco; et per il mezo d'essa passa la linea equinottiale et è el principio del primo clima al terzo paralello.' - L'Isole piu Famose del Monde, descritte da THOMASO PORCACCHI, lib. iii. p. 30. GIBBON states, that "Salmasius and most of the ancients confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra." - Decl. and Fall. ch. xl. This is a mistake. Saumaise was one of those who maintained a correct opinion; and, as regards the "ancients," they had very little knowledge of Further India, to which Sumatra belongs; but so long as Greek and Roman literature maintained their influence, no question was raised as to the identity of Ceylon and Taprobane. Even in the sixth century Cosmas Indicopleustes declares unhesitatingly that the Sielediva of the Indians was the Taprobane of the Greeks. It was only on emerging from the general ignorance of the Middle Ages that the doubt was first promulgated. In the Catalan Map of A.D. 1375, entitled Image du Monde, Ceylon is omitted, and Taprobane is represented by Sumatra (MALTE BRUN, Hist. de Geogr., vol. i. p. 318); in that of Fra Mauro, the Venetian Monk, A.D. 1458, Seylan is given, but Taprobane is added over Sumatra. A similar error appears in the Mappe-monde, by RUYCH, in the Ptolemy of A.D. 1508, and in the writings of the geographers of the sixteenth century, GEMMA FRISIUS, SEBASTIAN MUNster, RAMUSIO, JUL. SCALIGER, ORTELIUS, and MERCATOR. The same view was adopted by the Venetian NICOLA DA CONTI, in the first half of the fifteenth century, by the Florentine ANDREA CORSALI, MAXIMILIANUS TRANSYLVANUS, VARTHEMA, and PIGAFETTA. The chief cause of this perplexity was, no doubt, the difficulty of reconciling the actual position and size of Ceylon with the dimensions and position assigned to it by Strabo and Ptolemy, the latter of whom, by an error which is elsewhere explained, extended the boundary of the island far to the east of its actual site. But there was a large body of men who rejected the claim of Sumatra, and DE BARROS, SALMASIUS, BoCHART CLUVERIUS, CELLARIUS, ISAAC VOSSIUS and others, maintained the title of Ceylon. A Mappe-monde of A.D. 1417, preserved in the Pitti Palace at Florence compromises the dispute by designating Sumatra Taprobane Major. The controversy came to an end at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the overpowering authority of DELISLE resolved the doubt, and confirmed the modern Ceylon as the Taprobane of antiquity. WILFORD, in the Asiatic Researches (vol. x. p. 140), still clung Latitude and Longitude.-There has hitherto been considerable uncertainty as to the position assigned to Ceylon in the various maps and geographical notices of the island these have been corrected by more recent observations, and its true place has been ascertained to be between 5° 55′ and 9° 51′ north latitude, and 79° 41′ 40′′ and 81° 54′ 50′′ east longitude. Its extreme length from north to south, from Point Palmyra to Dondera Head, is 2714 miles; its greatest width 137 miles, from Colombo on the west coast to Sangemankande on the east; and its area, including its dependent islands, 25,742 miles, or about one-sixth smaller than Ireland.1 to the opposite opinion, and KANT | impracticable, in a country unopened undertook to prove that Taprobane was Madagascar. 1 Down to a very recent period no British colony was more imperfectly surveyed and mapped than Ceylon; but since the recent publication by Arrowsmith of the great map by General Fraser, the reproach has been withdrawn, and no dependency of the Crown is more richly provided in this particular. In the map of Schneider, the Government engineer in 1813, two-thirds of the Kandyan Kingdom are a blank; and in that of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, re-published so late as 1852, the rich districts of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny, in which there are innumerable villages (and scarcely a hill), are marked as "unknown mountainous region." But General Fraser, after the devotion of a lifetime to the labour, has produced a survey which, in extent and minuteness of detail, stands unrivalled. In this great work he had the co-operation of Major Skinner and of Captain Gallwey, and to these two gentlemen the public are indebted for the greater portion of the field-work and the trigonometrical operations. To judge of the difficulties which beset such an undertaking, it must be borne in mind that till very recently travelling in the interior of Ceylon was all but | un even by bridle roads, across bridged rivers, over mountains never trod by the foot of a European, and amidst precipices inaccessible to all but the most courageous and prudent. Add to this that the country is densely covered with forests and jungle, with trees a hundred feet high, from which here and there the branches had to be cleared to obtain a sight of the signal stations. The triangulation was carried on amidst privations, discomfort, and pestilence, which frequently prostrated the whole party, and forced their attendants to desert them rather than encounter such hardships and peril. The materials collected by the colleagues of General Fraser under these discouragements have been worked up by him with consummate skill and perseverance. The base line, five and a quarter miles in length, was measured in 1845 in the cinnamon plantation at Kaderani, to the north of Colombo, and its extremities are still marked by two towers, which it was necessary to raise to the height of one hundred feet, to enable them to be discerned above the surrounding forests. These it is to be hoped will be carefully kept from decay, as they may again be called into requisition. As regards the sea line, an admirable chart of the West coast, General Form.-In its general outline the island resembles a pear--and suggests to its admiring inhabitants the figure of those pearls which from their MADREPORS MARITIME BELT 4212 elongated form are suspended from the tapering end. When originally upheaved above the ocean its shape was in all probability nearly circular, with a prolongation in the direction of north-east. The mountain zone in the south, covering an area of about 4,212 miles1, may then have formed the largest proportion of its entire area-and the belt of low lands, known as the Maritime Provinces, consist to a great extent of soil from the disintegration of the gneiss, detritus from the hills, alluvium carried down the rivers, and marine deposits gradually collected on the shore. But in addition to these, the land has for ages been slowly rising from the sea, and terraces abounding in marine shells imbedded in agglutinated sand occur in situations far above high-water mark. Immediately inland from Point de Galle, the surface soil rests on a stratum of decomposing coral; and sea shells are found at a considerable distance from the shore. Further north at Madampe, between Chilaw and Negombo, the shells of pearl oysters and other bivalves are turned up by the plough more than ten miles from the sea. These recent formations present themselves in a still more striking form in the north of the island, the greater portion of which may be regarded as the conjoint pro from Adam's Bridge to Dondera Head. has been published by the East India Company from a survey in 1845. But information is sadly wanted as to the East and North, of which no accurate charts exist, except of a few unconnected points, such as the harbour of Trincomalie. 1 This includes not only the lofty mountains suitable for the cultivation of coffee, but the lower ranges and spurs which connect them with the maritime plains. duction of the coral polypi, and the currents, which for the greater portion of the year set impetuously towards the south. Coming laden with alluvial matter collected along the coast of Coromandel, and meeting with obstacles south of Point Calimere, they have deposited their burthens on the coral reefs round Point Pedro; and these raised above the sea-level, and covered deeply by sand drifts, have formed the peninsula of Jaffna and the plains that trend westward till they unite with the narrow causeway of Adam's Bridge itself raised by the same agencies, and annually added to by the influences of the tides and monsoons. 1 On the north-west side of the island, where the currents are checked by the obstruction of Adam's Bridge, and still water prevails in the Gulf of Manaar, these deposits have been profusely heaped, and the low sandy plains have been proportionally extended; whilst on the south and east, where the current sweeps unimpeded along the coast, the line of the shore is bold and occasionally rocky. This explanation of the accretion and rising of the land is somewhat opposed to the popular belief that Ceylon was torn from the main land of India by a convulsion, during which the Gulf of Manaar and the narrow channel at Paumbam were formed by the submersion of the adjacent land. The two theories might be reconciled by supposing the sinking to have occurred at an early period, and to have been followed by the uprising still in progress. But on a closer examination of the structure and direction of the mountain 1 The barrier known as Adam's Bridge, which obstructs the navigation of the channel between Ceylon and Ramnad, consists of several parallel ledges of conglomerate and sandstone, hard at the surface, and growing coarse and soft as it descends till it rests on a bank of sand, appa rently accumulated by the influence of the currents at the change of the monsoons. See an Essay by Captain STEWART on the Paumbem Passage. Colombo, 1837. 2 LASSEN, Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. i. p. 193. system of Ceylon, it exhibits no traces of submersion. It seems erroneous to regard it as a prolongation of the Indian chains; it lies far to the east of the line formed by the Ghauts on either side of the peninsula, and any affinity which it exhibits is rather with the equatorial direction of the intersecting ranges of the Nilgherries and the Vindhya. In their geological elements there is, doubtless, a similarity between the southern extremity of India and the elevated portions of Ceylon; but there are also many important particulars in which their specific differences are irreconcilable with the conjecture of previous continuity. In Ceylon there is a marked preponderance of aqueous strata, which are comparatively rare in the vicinity of Cape Comorin; and whilst the rocks of the former are entirely destitute of organic remains1; fossils, both terrestrial and pelagic, have been found in the Eastern Ghauts, and sandstone, in some instances, overlays the primary rocks which compose them. The rich and black soil to the south of the Nilgherries presents a strong contrast to the red and sandy earth of the opposite coast; and both in the flora and fauna of the island there are exceptional peculiarities which suggest a distinction between it and the Indian continent. Mountain System.-At whatever period the mountains of Ceylon may have been raised, the centre of maximum energy must have been in the vicinity of Adam's Peak, the group immediately surrounding 1 At Cutchavelly, north of Trincomalie, there exists a bed of calcareous clay, in which shells and crustaceans are found in a semifossilised state; but they are all of recent species, principally Macrophthalmus and Scylla. The breccia at Jaffna contains recent shells, as does also the arenaceous strata on the western coast of Manaar and in the neighbourhood of Galle. The existence of the fossilised crustaceans in the north of Ceylon was known to the early Arabian navigators. Abou-zeyd describes them as, "Un animal de mer qui ressemble à l'écrevisse; quand cet animal sort de la mer, il se convertit en pierre." See REINAUD, Voyages faits par les Arabes, vol. i. p. 21. The Arabs then, and the Chinese at the present day, use these petrifactions when powdered as a specific for diseases of the eye. |