ASSAM, BURMA, AND CEYLON 187

India is produced in the forests of Burma, together with
sticklac and rubber. Cotton, sesamum, and tobacco are
extensively grown in the lower provinces, though rice
covers about five-sixths of the cultivated area. In Upper
Burma rice, maize, millet, wheat, pulse, tobacco, cotton,
and sesamum are chiefly grown. Burma is rich in minerals.
 Gold and silver are found in small quantities,
marble (near Mandalay), coal, and petroleum, jade and
amber are all produced in fair amount; the mines of
Mogok (forty miles north-east of Mandalay) supply the
world with rubies ; sapphires are also found there, and in
the Shan states. The silks of Mandalay; the lacquer
work of Pagan; the gold and silver work of Rangoon,
Maulmain, and most of the large towns of Burma; Burmese
 wood and ivory carving (especially that of Mulmain)
are celebrated all the world over. “The characteristics
of Burmese art are vigour and novelty in design, but want
of delicacy and finish in execution.
Burma is essentially the land of temples, pagodas, and
of wooden architecture—and it is the latter, doubtless,
which has led to the development of the vigorous forms
of wood carving that are to be found in that country.
The early capitals of Burma (Tagoun, between Bhamo
and Mandalay, earliest of all; Pagan, coincident with
Pollonarua, the ancient capital of Ceylon ; and Thathun)
are all full of the interest of early forms of architectural
design, obviously drawn from Babylonian sources. The
connecting links in India seem to have disappeared (possibly
 owing to the free use of wood in construction), so
that Burma now stands alone as the modern exponent of
fairly complete forms of architecture of which the prototypes
 are to be seen in ruins on the plains of Chaldza.
Of one of the pagodas at Mengun, half-way between
Mandalay and the old capital of Amirapura, Fergusson
writes: “ Had it been carried out it would have been the
tallest building in the world. It was, however, shattered
by an earthquake in 1839 ; but even in its ruined state it
is as large and imposing a mass of brickwork as is to be
found anywhere. Since the pyramids of Egypt nothing