Directory_and_Chronicle_1896 — Page 774

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SINGAPORE

The population of Singapore Island, according to the census taken in 1891, was 184,544, of whom 121,908 were Chinese and 35,992 Malays, an increase of 45,336 on the census of 1881. There are 5,254 Europeans and Americans, including 1,160 military. The total Eurasian population is given as 3,589. The Indians total 16,035, of whom 12,503 are Tamils, 3,452 Bengalis, 26 Burmese, and 54 Parsees. Other nationalities total 1,776; the Arabs leading with 806, the Japanese number 287, the Siamese 211, the Jews 190, the Sinhalese 159, and the Armenians 68. The population of the town of Singapore is about 97,000.

The climate of Singapore is remarkable for its salubrity, and the island has been described by medical writers as the "paradise of children," infantile diseases seldom being at all malignant. Despite its proximity to the equator, under normal circumstances a daily rainfall tempers the heat so thoroughly that many sleep beneath blankets. Droughts, however, have been experienced of from one to six months. The climate of the island is thus described by Mr. Thomson, in the "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," his remarks still holding_good:-"Singapore though within 80 miles of the equator, has an abundance of moisture, either deposited by the dews or gentle refreshing showers, which keeps its atmosphere cool, prevents the parching effects of the sun, and promotes continual verdure. It never experiences furious gales. If more than ordinary heat has accumulated moisture and electricity a squall generally sets in, followed by a heavy shower of rain, such squalls seldom exceeding one or two hours in duration. According to the monsoon blows, you will have the squalls coming from that direction. But the most severe and numerous are from the west, called 'Sumatras,' and these occur most frequently between 1 and 5 o'clock in the morning. The north-east monsoon blows from November to March; after which the wind veers round to the south-east and gradually sets in the south-west, at which point it continues to September. The north-east blows more steadily than the south-west monsoon. The temperature is by one or two degrees cooler in the first than in the last. The average fall of rain is found, from the observation of a series of years, to be 92.697 inches; and the average number of days in the year in which rain falls is found to be 180, thus dividing the year almost equally between wet and dry; the rain not being continuous, but pretty equally distributed through the year, January, however, being the month in which the greatest quantity falls. The mean temperature of Singapore is 81°.247, the lowest being 79°.55 and the highest 82°.31, so that the range is not more than 2.76, It would appear from this that the temperature of the island is by 9°.90 lower than that of many other localities in the same latitude. Comparing the temperature now stated with that which was ascertained twenty years earlier, and in the infancy of the Settlement, it would appear that it had increased by 2°.48—a fact ascribed, no doubt, to the increase of buildings, and to the country having been cleared of forest for three miles inland from the town, the site of the observations. The general character of the climate as to temperature is that the heat is great and continuous, but never excessive, and that there is little distinction of seasons, summer and winter differing from each other only by one or two degrees of the thermometer. Thunder-showers are of frequent occurrence, but the thunder is by no means so severe as I have experienced it in Java, and seldom destructive to life or property.

The botany of this place possesses several interesting considerations. Being a connection-link between the Indian and Australian forms, we have types of both, and many genera of either region. We observe the Indian forms in the natural families Palma, Scitamine, Aroidea, Artocarpeæ, Euphorbiaceæ, Apocyne, Guttiferæ, Convol- vulacee, Leguminosa, all numerous. The natural families Casuarina, Myrtaceæ, parti- cularly Melaleuca and Proteacea, connect us with Australia. The plants, which usually spring up when the primeval forest has been cut down, and where the bane of all the rest of the vegetable kingdom-the Andropogon caricosum, or Lalang grass-bas not taken possession, belong to the following genera:-Melastoma, Myrtus, Morinda, Solanum, Rubus, Rottlera, Clerodendrum, Commersonia, Ficus, and Passiflora. The forest contains an immense number of species of timber trees, most of them of great height and growth. Above two hundred have been collected, and of these about half-a- dozen afford good timber for house and boat-building. The teak is not of the number. The forest also produces the two species which yield the useful gutta-percha, and a fig which affords an elastic gum. But for use these articles, as well as timber, are not obtained from Singapore itself, but from the wider and more accessible forests of the neighbouring continent."

The zoology of Singapore is that of the neighbouring continent, to the exclusion of some of the larger animals-as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tapir, and the ox. The largest feline animal indigenous to the island is a small leopard, called by the