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Enclosure
THE REV. J. TENISON-WOODS ON THE MINES AND MINERALS OF
THE MALAY PENINSULA.
An interesting lecture ou the Mixes and Minerals of the Malay Peninsula was delivered yesterday afternoou by the Rev. J. Tenison- Woods, in St. Andrew's Hall, Thero was a large attendance. His Excellency the Governor pro- sided, and amongst those present were His Ex- cellency Vice-Admiral Dowell, K.C.B.. Mr. Justice Russell, Ion. W. Keswick, Hon. A. Lister, aud several ladi.s.
His EXCELLENCY, in oponing the proceed. ings, said-Ladies and gentlemen, I have been requested to take the chair this afternoon on the very interesting oocasion of the delivery of a lecture by the Rev. Julian Tenison-Woods on the "Mines and Minerals of the Malay Peniu- Bula. As I am informed, this is a matter of practical and financial, as well as of scientific interest to some gentlemen in this colony- (a laugh)-who have advanced funds for the exploration of the mineral resouroes of the Straits Settlements. If this be so, I earnestly trust that the patriotic efforts of those gentle- men to promote the cause of seiance will be re- warded by financial success; that they will ho re- warded not only by advantage to their minds, but also to their pockets. (Applause). Of one thing I am quite sure, and that is, that they will got the most correct and useful in- formation from Mr. Tenison-Woods-(Ap- plause)-whom I have known for twenty-five years as an eminent geologist and mineralogist, and as the author of one of the best books on the exploration of Australia. My rev. friend has reminded me that he was my guest nearly a quarter of a century ago, when I was the first Governor of the great colony of Queensland; and I often heard of his reputation afterwards while I was Governor of New Zealand and Victoria in fact during the whole twenty years that I passed in Australia as the Repre sentative of the Queen successively in three of i the greatest provinces of the Empire (Applause). I have therefore great pleasure in introducing Mr. Woods to this meeting. And here let me observe that the lecture of this day presents a very interesting subject of reflection. Here we have 2 practical proof that religion has no longer any fear of science. (Applause). We see a Roman Catholic clergyman about to lecture on what was once considered the dan gerons science of geology, and I am surprised we have not the Bishop ready to applaud him, but I am sure it must be owing to some acei- dent that my friend Bishop Raimondi is not here to-day. (Applause.) In the sixteenth century, as we all know, the great astronoter Galileo was persecuted because he contended that the earth goes round the sun, and until quite lately geology was considered a more irreligions science than astronomy. This feel- ing was not confined to the Church of Rome. At the end of the last century an eminent Bishop of the Church of England ridienled the pre- tensions of geologists--and we
kuow that ridicule is often a more dangerous weapon than batred; as Horace says:
---~* Pidioainm acri Fortius ac melius magnas peraæpe scoat res."
by saying that for a man crawling on the face of the earth to pretend that he knew what was going on in the interior of our planet was like agnat on the shoulder of an elephant pretend- ing that it knew what was going on in the bowels of the huge animal (Laughter.) But behold what progress!
Here we have Mr. Woods, at the end of the nineteenth century, about to tell us living in Hongkong what is go- ing on in the bowels of the Malay Peninsula, some three thousand miles away. (Applause). Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, in the entire his- tory of science there is nothing more remarkable than the progress of geology during the pre- sont century, or I will say during the last fifty years. So it is more or loss with all the sciences, but I think the progress of geology is the most remarkable of all. But, like all other sciences, though it has achieved many victories, it has still many victories to achieve. That grand old philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, on his death- bed, said that whatever might be thought by others of his great discoveries in natural science, he himself only felt that he had been like a child gathering shells on the shore of the
eternal
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eternal ocean of truth and knowledge. (ApplaIRE '7 The field of science is like one of those fast
Australian forests which Mr. Woods and I kg 1914 MAR 35
and love so well, in which the more trees felled the greater appears the expanse of wood around. Without farther preface I now intro- ince to you the Rev. Mr. Tenison-Woods. (Applause).
The Rev. J. TENISON-WOODS said he thought it was due to his hearers, and in a certain sense due to himself, that he should explain as briefly as possible some of the qualifications he had for dealing with this subject, and why he had sp proached the subject at all in the lecture which he now proposed to give. He had lived for a long time, as His Excellency had informed them, in Australia, but His Excellency had not in- formed them, what he might now add, that dur- ing the time he had lived there he had been a witness to the great efforts His Exoellaney had made to forward anything which favoured the advance of science, whether geological or geo- graphical, in those British colonies. In the course of his missionary duties he had explored a great deal of country which had never before been trodden by the foot of civilised man, and as he was always very much interested in geological subjects, and had visited most of the mineral producing countries in Europe, he wrote down his impressions of what ha then saw. He thought no more charming study could be imagined than a new country in which something is discovered which may large- ly influence the destiny of the colonies, and per- haps to some extent the history of the world. And so, having seen a good deal that would in. terest the public, he published some of what he saw, at first on his own account and at his own cost. One or two of the first works be publish. ed were geological, and these, in course of time, led him to be regarded as an authority on the i subject, and the Government assisted him after
wards, and enabled him to publish accounts of many of his researches. In the course of time he was invited to visit and report upon many mineral districts that had been discovered, so that the Government might have the opinion of an impartial and independent witness on the va Ine of the deposits. After many years had been spent in this way, during which he might say there were few mineral districts in the whole of Australia which he had not visit- ed, he went on a visit to an old friend of his, Sir Frederick Wold, and while at Singapore he was invited by Sir Hugh Low to visit the mineral districts in the state of which he was revident, and on the part of the Government His Ex- cellency promised to see that he was taken about to every place he wished to see free of all expense, provided that he would give them a report. This ho did. He spent six or seven months exploring through the native state of Perak, during which explorations he had the pleasure of becoming ac- quainted with some of the features of the country not previously made known. Subsequently he visited Malacca, and afterwards went through some of the mining districts of Selangor. Thus he became intimately acquainted with all the mine- ral producing deposits of the Malay Peninsula. From there he went to Sumatra and Bintang, and the celebrated tin districts under the Dutch Gov- ernment. Thus he became not only acquainted with the tin deposits of Australia, which mineral ranked second as a production of that island only to gold, but he also became acquainted, and bad means of comparing what he saw in Australia, with what was to be seen in the Malay Penin- sula. So much for his qualifications for dealing with the subject, and now as to his reasons for giving this lecture. A great deal of misunder- standing existed with regard to the minerals of the Malay Peninsula. Very little was known about them, though he believed there were many in Hongkong who thought they knew a great deal too much. (Hear, hour). But for all that be thought that if they had a little more explana- tion they would not take the despondent view they now seemed apt to take as to the future of these mining districts. What he proposed to do was to avoid as much as possible all technical matters, and give them as clear an idea as he could of the nature of the tin deposits of the Malay Peninsula. Though the object to which he should thus confine himself was a small one, he should have to choose very carefully anong a multitude of subjects connected with it in order to fit it in within the limits of a brief i lecture. From what he had seen and ail he had į
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