These beds present an appearance very closely resembling a similar rock, in which human remains have been found imbedded, at the north-east of Guadaloupe, now in the British Museum.[1] Incorporated with them there are minute fragments of sapphires, rubies, and tourmaline, showing that the sand of which the breccia is composed has been washed down by the rivers from the mountain zone.
[Footnote 1: Dr.Gardner.] NORTHERN PROVINCES .-- _Coral Formation_ .-- But the principal scene of the most recent formations is the extreme north of the island, with the adjoining peninsula of Jaffna.

Here the coral rocks abound far above high-water mark, and extend across the island where the land has been gradually upraised, from the eastern to the western shore.

The fortifications of Jaffna were built by the Dutch, from blocks of breccia quarried far from the sea, and still exhibit, in their worn surface, the outline of the shells and corallines of which they mainly consist.

The roads, in the absence of more solid substances, are metalled with the same material; as the only other rock which occurs is a loose description of conglomerate, similar to that at Adam's Bridge and Manaar.
The phenomenon of the gradual upheaval of these strata is sufficiently attested by the position in which they appear, and their altitude above high-water mark; but, in close contiguity with them, an equally striking evidence presents itself in the fact that, at various points of the western coast, between the island of Manaar and Karativoe, the natives, in addition to fishing for chank shells[1] in the sea, dig them up in large quantities from beneath the soil on the adjacent shores, in which they are deeply imbedded[2], the land having since been upraised.
[Footnote 1: _Turbinella rapa_, formerly known as _Voluta gravis_ used by the people of India to be sawn into bangles and anklets.] [Footnote 2: In 1845 an antique iron anchor was found under the soil at the northwestern point of Jaffna, of such size and weight as to show that it must have belonged to a ship of much greater tonnage than any which the depth of water would permit to navigate the channel at the present day.] The sand, which covers a vast extent of the peninsula of Jaffna, and in which the coco-nut and Palmyra-palm grow freely, has been carried by the currents from the coast of India, and either flung upon the northern beach in the winter months, or driven into the lake during the south-west monsoon, and thence washed on shore by the ripple, and distributed by the wind.
The arable soil of Jaffna is generally of a deep red colour, from the admixture of iron, and, being largely composed of lime from the comminuted coral, it is susceptible of the highest cultivation, and produces crops of great luxuriance.

This tillage is carried on exclusively by irrigation from innumerable wells, into which the water rises fresh through the madrepore and sand; there being no streams in the district, unless those percolations can be so called which make their way underground, and rise through the sands on the margin of the sea at low water.
_Wells in the Coral Rock_ .-- These phenomena occur at Jaffna, in consequence of the rocks being magnesian limestone and coral, overlying a bed of sand, and in some places, where the soil is light, the surface of the ground is a hollow arch, so that it resounds as if a horse's weight were sufficient to crush it inwards.