1214
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS-SINGAPORE
There has been a constant stream of immigration into the Settlements from China and Southern India for many years past, the number of immigrants from China prior to the great war being about 300,000 a year, mostly for employment on the rubber estates or in the tin mines in the Federated Malay States. There were 126,077 Chinese immigrants in 1920, an increcase of 77.8 per cent. as compared with the number in 1919, but a decrease of 53.3 per cent. as compared with that in 1911, which showed the highest number yet recorded. The total number of India immigrants in 1920 was 95,229, compared with 101,433 in 1919. At the end of June, 1914, portions of the local Ordinances relating to Chinese labour were repealed and since then no iminigrants have been given free passages to the Colony in considera tion of entering into contracts for services on arrival.
The total tonnage of merchant vessels arriving at and departing from the ports of the Colony in 1920 was 24,027,912, as compared with 18,885,183 in 1919 and 13,054,270 in
1918.
SINGAPORE
The town of Singapore, situated on the southern shore of an island of the samen name, in lat. 1 deg. 16 min. N. and long. 103 deg. 43 min. E., is the seat of governinent of the Straits Settlements.
:
The Island of Singapore is about 26 miles long by 14 wide, containing an area of 206, or, with the adjacent islets, 223 square miles, and is separated by a narrow strai about three-quarters of a mile wide from the territory of Johore, which occupies the Southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula. Originally taken possession of in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles, it was, until 1823, subordinate to our then settlement in Sumatra In that year it became an appanage of the Indian Government, in which condition i remained until 1867, when it was placed under the Colonial Office in conjunction withi Penang and Malacca.
The plain upon which the town and suburbs stand is chiefly composed of deep bed of white, bluish, or reddish sand, averaging 90 to 95 per cent. of silica. The rest i aluminous. Recent shells and sea-mud found in this sand show it to have been formee by a retreating sea. The general composition of the island, which consists of low hill and ridges, with narrow and swampy flats intervening, is sandstone, with the exception of Bukit Timah, which is of granite formation, containing about 18 per cent. of quartz Colonel Low (J. I. A., vol. i., p. 84) specifies eight varieties. The soil overlying the granit is rather meagre (the stone being neither very porphyritic nor micaceous and not ver liable to disintegration), but it, of course, contains a vast quantity of vegetable mould The sandstone is of various colours, the darker variety rapidly decomposing in situ in yellow clay, though applicable to building when fresh from the quarry. All thi sandstones are heavily impregnated with iron, and an ironstone, known as latcrite, is to the casual observer, the prevailing mineral of the island. This occurs sometime in veins, but more frequently in large beds on the sides of hills, and is extensivel quarried for road-making purposes. It is supposed to contain manganese, and is found from the size of coarse sand to that of masses 15 or 20 feet in diameter. It is of dark. clove-brown colour externally; internally it is cellular, and varies in density, bein often, when freshly dug, soft enough to be cut with a knife, or hard enough to resis the pick. It is not magnetic in the mass, but when pulverized is found to contai grains of magnetic iron. It hardens considerably on exposure to the air. A substanc somewhat resembling soapstone, with red, white, or greenish streaks, is sometime found amongst the clays, being rather greasy to the touch, and occasionally of fibrous texture. The valleys or flats of Singapore have a peaty substratum, varying in thickness from six inches to a couple of feet. Below this generally lies a bed cold clay, and below this a stratum of arenaceous clay. In many districts kaolin f found in large quantities and is of excellent quality.
The town proper cxtends for about four miles along the south-eastern shore of th island, spreading inland for a distance varying from half to three-quarters of a mildi though the majority of the residences of the upper class Europeans lie much