June 27, 1859.] ^ ADDITIONAL NOTICES. 369 



distinguishable paste, are irregular in size, varying from a line to infinitesimal 

 minuteness. 



c. The clayslate exhibits a homogeneous mass of very scaly properties. 

 The colour varies from a light grey to a dark black. As the carboniferous 

 particles increase, the rock possesses less cohesion and solidity, which pecu- 

 liarity in the black variety increases to such an extent, that it is transformed 

 into a true drawing-slate, the so-termed black chalk. 



The greywacke group is at Timor the principal formation, and it really con- 

 tributes to the peculiar character of the country. Including the highest 

 mountains, it extends from close to the bay of Koepang, in a north-easterly- 

 direction, through the middle of the island to almost equal distances from 

 both sides of the sea-coast, and thus forms as it were the core of the country 

 to which the other formations attach themselves. The richest gold-bearing 

 rivers, as well as those in the beds of which pieces of pure copper and copper 

 ores are found, have their sources within its limits, and flow through it for 

 a considerable distance. 



At the southern foot of the mountain Mieomaffo, near to the place where 

 the clay-slate forms a vast deposit, the sandstone of the above-named group 

 is broken through by serpentine. 



Along with the serpentine, and closely related to it, appears a conglomerate 

 containing angular pieces of common serpentine and ophites, mixed with more 

 or less altered remnants of greywacke sandstone, which pieces of stone are 

 united into one solid mass by means of a pitchstone-like paste. 



To judge from what we have seen and heard respecting gold and copper 

 at Koepang, we think it must be maintained that the eastern parts of the 

 island under Portuguese sovereignty are much more richly endowed than the 

 western districts, belonging to the territory of the Netherlands. Almost all 

 the copper, as well as most of the golddust, obtainable at Koepang, and 

 brought chiefly by Chinese merchants, is derived from the Belonese countries. 

 Mines, however, properly speaking, are nowhere to be found ; those metals 

 are mostly obtained by washing from the beds of rivers, and from other 

 places, out of a sandy or clayish soil. The value of the Timor gold is com- 

 monly 20 to 21^ carats in fineness. Copper often appears in a pure state. 

 Amongst others we have received at Koepang, from the Portuguese territory, 

 a pure piece of the w^eight of 2*68 kilogrammes, and of a fig-like form. Other 

 similar pieces of pure copper were seen by us there of different sizes. Pro- 

 fessor Keinwaardt makes mention further, in a report concerning the appear- 

 ance and the quality of the metal in the island of Timor in the year 1827, 

 furnished by him to the Minister of Marine and the Colonies, of a very rich 

 copper ore containing nearly 85 per cent, of pure metal, which may easily 

 be obtained from it by proper smelting. With this ore derived from the 

 Dutch territory, are mixed, moreover, says this savant, single pieces of pure 

 copper. 



Our reports differ in more than one respect very considerably from those 

 of our predecessors, among whom Peron, for instance, maintains that Tin or 

 is indebted for its existence to the slow but ceaseless labours of the coral 

 insect ; while Quoy, Guachichaud, Freycinet, and other later travelleis, 

 ascribe it chiefly to volcanic action. There are no volcanic mountains, nor 

 were even the slightest traces of true volcanic rocks found by us. 



Pulo Kambing, in the strait Samauw, is composed of the greywacke sand- 

 stone, and contains mud volcanoes. 



Pulo Samauw has mineral springs. 



