ni came the
Greek name for Ceylon, _Taprobane_. Mr. de Alwis has corrected an error
in this passage of Mr. Turnour's translation; the word in the original,
which he took for _Tamba-panniyo_, or "copper-palmed," being in reality
_tamba-vanna_, or "copper-coloured." Colonel Forbes questions the
accuracy of this derivation, and attributes the name to the _tamana_
trees; from the abundance of which he says many villages in Ceylon, as
well as a district in southern India, have been similarly called.
(_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. p. 10.) I have not succeeded in
discovering what tree is designated by this name, nor does it occur in
MOON'S _List of Ceylon Plants_. On the southern coast of India a river,
which flows from the ghats to the sea, passing Tinnevelly, is called
Tambapanni. Tambapanni, as the designation of Ceylon, occurs in the
inscription on the rock of Girnar in Guzerat, deciphered by Prinsep,
containing an edict by Asoka relative to the medical administration of
India for the relief both of man and beast, (_Asiat. Soc. Journ. Beng._
vol. vii. p. 158.)]

The transformation of gneiss into laterite in these localities has been
attributed to the circumstance, that those sections of the rock which
undergo transition exhibit grains of magnetic iron ore partially
disseminated through them; and the phenomenon of the conversion has been
explained not by recurrence to the ordinary conception of mere
weathering, which is inadequate, but to the theory of catalytic action,
regard being had to the peculiarity of magnetic iron when viewed in its
chemical formula.[1] The oxide of iron thus produced communicates its
colouring to the laterite, and in proportion as felspar and hornblende
abound in the gneiss, the cabook assumes respectively a white or yellow
hue. So ostensible is the series of mutations, that in ordinary
excavations there is no difficulty in tracing a continuous connection
without definite lines of demarcation between the soil and the laterite
on the one hand, and the laterite and gneiss rock on the other.[2]

[Footnote 1: From a paper read to the Royal Physical Society of
Edinburgh by the Rev. J.G. Macvicar, D.D.]

[Footnote 2: From a paper on the Geology of Ceylon, by Dr. Gardner, in
the Appendix to Lee's translation of RIBEYRO'S _History of Ceylon_, p,
206. The earliest and one of the ablest essays on the geological system
and mineralogy of Ceylon will be found in DAVY'S _Account of the
Interior of Ceylon_