Directory_and_Chronicle_1908 — Page 1319

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STRAITS SETTLEMENTS–SINGAPORE

and import returns of 1905. Including treasure the total was $650,314,100 as compared with $615,194,901 in 1995. The gross imports in 1906 into the three Settlements were valued at 3523 million dollars (£41,129,000). An increase of 15 million dollars was shown in the value of merchandise as compared with the returns for 1905, the increase being in exports, imports showing a decline of a million and a quarter. In the fiscal annals of the Colony a new departure was marked in 1906 by the introduction of a Bill sanctioning the raising of loans aggregat ing £8,123,039, for paying the shareholders of the Tangong Pagar Docks, which the Government have expropriated, and for carrying out some big improvement schemes.

The total tonnage of merchant vessels arriving and departing in 1906 was 19,711,498 as compared with 18,890,600 in 1905.

There has been a constant stream of émigration into the Settlements from China and Southern India for many years past In 1902, 1903, and 1904, the emigrants from China numbered over 200,000 per annum, but in 1905, the figure fell to 173.131; and in 1906 the number was 176,587. It is noted that the figures for female immigration from China show, in the words of the Governor, "a regrettable reduction." Free immigrants, ie. coolies who obtain free passages in China, in consideration of entering into con- tracts for service on arrival in the colony, represented in 1906 12 per cent. of the total adult male immigrants, the highest precentage since the year 1900. The immigrants from Southern India in 1906 numbered 52,041 (20,215 being “free coolies,” with aided tickets), and 21,140 adults and 735 children left the Colony.

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SINGAPORE

The town of Singapore, situated on the southern shore of an island of the same name, in lat. 1 deg. 16 min. N. and long. 103 deg. 43 min. E., is the seat of government 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 strait 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 it remained until 1867, when it was placed under the Colonial Office in conjunction with. Penang and Malacca.

The plain upon which the town and suburbs stand is chiefly composed of deep beds of white, bluish, or reddish sand, averaging 90 to 95 per cent. of silica. The rest is aluminous. Recent shells and sea-mud found in this sand show it to have been formed by a retreating sea. The general composition of the island, which consists of low hills 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 granite is rather meagre (the stone being neither very porphyritic nor micaceous and not very 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 the sandstones are heavily impregnated with iron, and an ironstone, known as laterite, is, to the casual observer, the prevailing mineral of the island. This occurs sometimes in veins, but more frequently in large beds on the sides of hills, and is extensively 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, being often, when freshly dug, soft enough to be cut with a knife, or hard enough to resist the pick. It is not magnetic in the mass, but when pulverized is found to contain grains of magnetic iron. It hardens considerably on exposure to the air. A substance somewhat resembling soapstone, with red, white, or greenish streaks, is sometimes found amongst the clays, being rather greasy to the touch, and occasionally of a

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