10 ON THE VEGETATION OF MALAYSIA, 



The Malay Peninsula is covered with ranges of mountains 

 running parallel with the general trend of the land. There are 

 two systems of mountains ; one running through the centre and 

 forming a watershed between the east and west coasts ; the other 

 a broken series of ranges lying between the main range and tlie 

 sea. The first mountain chain is the highest. It increases in 

 extent and height towards the wider parts of the land, and many 

 of its summits reach elevations of from 8,000 to 10,000 feet. It 

 gradually declines from the interior of Perak, and after passing- 

 through the state of Malacca it subsides to the level of the sea in 

 the island of Singapore. 



The second range parallel with this consists of two or three 

 parallel ranges. They do not form a watershed. There are 

 several gaps and intervals between them through which rivers 

 pass. These ranges rise to a height of between 5,000 and 6,000 

 feet. Some of them border almost on the very edge of the sea. 



The geology of this region is very simple. The basis of the 

 whole is granitic. This is overlaid in places by schists and slates, 

 which, on the coast, where exposed to marine action, have decom- 

 posed into a reddish deposit called Laterite. The schists and 

 slates contain large quantities of iron, forming purple, red, and 

 brightly variegated strata. The Laterite, therefore, is a hydra ted 

 per-oxide of iron with clay, or Limonite. At the junction of the 

 granite with the schists or Laterite, tin occurs, forming some of 

 the richest mines of stream tin in the world. The main range is 

 probably in its highest portions largely composed of schists. 

 There are besides this a number of isolated outliers of crystalline 

 limestone retaining traces of stratification. These form abrupt 

 and precipitous mountain masses of limited extent, from 1,500 to 

 2,000 feet high. They do not contain fossils ; but in Borneo 

 similar masses contain Devonian fossils, and therefore it is pro- 

 bable that this is the age of the strata in the Malay Peninsula. 

 There is scarcely any development of volcanic rocks on the western 

 side, though I have seen a recent basaltic dyke in one place. But 

 on the eastern side, half-way between the mountain range and the 



