Directory_and_Chronicle_1913 — Page 1342

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS-SINGAPORE

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is regarded as a veritable land of promise, for the potentialities in respect of agriculture and mining cannot be over-estimated. It has been pointed out that these two industries will necessitate the introduction of allied industries, and all will make for a permanently prosperous State.

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 for paying the shareholders of the Tanjong Pagar Docks, which the Government have expropriated, and for carrying out big improvement schemes. The position of the Loans Account an additional 'sum of £2,750,000 having been raised in 1910-was as follows on December 30, 1910:--35 per cent. Inscribed Stock, £6,911,231 ; 4 per cent. Debentures, £1,032,200 giving a total of £7,943.431.

There has been a constant stream of emigration into the Settlements from China and Southern India for many years past, the number from China being upwards of 200,000 a year, mostly for employment on the rubber estates or in the tin mines in the Federated Malay States. In 1911, there were 269,854 Chinese immigrants-the highest on record and 198,471 Indian immigrants.

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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 abour 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 Timal, 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 porphyritie nor micaceous and not very liable e 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 substancə 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 fibrons 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 of cold clay, and below this a stratum of arenaceous clay. In many districts kaolin is

found in large quantities and of excellent quality.

The town proper extends for about four miles along the south-eastern shore of the island, spreading inland for a distance varying from half to three-quarters of a mile, though the majority of the residences of the upper class Europeans lie much further back, within a circle with a radius of three and a half miles from the Cathedral, This portion of the Settlement is almost entirely level, (the|highest hill in the