Correspondence — J. B. Scrivenor. 331 



Nederlandsch Oost-Lidie, xxxvii, 1908, partie scientifique), gives a 

 summary of the geology of the Moluccas and of the whole of the 

 Netherlands Indies. Under the heading " Schistes Anciens " certain 

 passages occur which may he translated as follows (p. 754) : " Ancient 

 schists without fossils, of which the age is unknown. Among these 

 there are probably Archiean as well as old PaliBozoic rocks. From 

 a petrographic point of view we can distinguish gneiss, mica-schist, 

 amphibole-schist, grauwacke, phyllite, argillaceous schist, etc. The 

 amphibolites, whose silica percentage is generally low, but which 

 contain much plagioclase, may by that be recognized as basic eruptive 

 rocks, most often gabbros, metamorphosed and become schistose owing 

 to orogenic movements. The other rocks are sediments more or less 

 modified ... (p. 755). The ancient schists are also widespread 

 in the islands of the Celebes, Borneo, Karimown Djawa (Djapara 

 Residency, Java), Billiton, Banka, Sumatra, and in the Peninsula of 

 Malacca (i.e. the Malay Peninsula, I.B.S.). Although a part of these 

 rocks may probably be azoic, among them are certainly others that are 

 younger." 



Seeing the recent date of Dr. Verbeek's Report, I think tliat his 

 remark about ancient schists in the Peninsula calls for some notice. 



I well remember, when I first came to the Federated Malay States, 

 a conversation with an official of the Public Works Department, who 

 assured me that a certain limestone in the north of Perak was Laurentian. 

 On gently pressing for evidence, it appeared that the sole reason for 

 this statement was that the Perak Limestone looked like Laurentian 

 Limestone that my informant had seen in Canada some years before. 



Had Dr. Yerbeek but known that the evidence of the existence of 

 Archaean or Lower Palaeozoic rocks outcropping in the Malay Peninsula 

 rested on such slender foundations as are exemplified above, I do not 

 think he would have said that the ancient schists are widespread in 

 this part of the East Indies; and, moreover, had the value of the 

 evidence been better known, statements of a similar nature would not 

 have crept into Professor Suess' Dcr Antlitz der Erde (Miss Sollas' 

 translation, vol. i, pp. 456, 457. Here the term 'Archaean schist' 

 occurs, vol. iii, p. 233. Here the Myophoria beds in Pahang are 

 apparently included in the ' ancient sediments'). 



But for a small portion of Borneo, the geology of the Malay 

 Archipelago is only known to me by the literature, and the question 

 of the ancient schists in that region is therefore one on which I am 

 not entitled to speak. But after a perusal of the scanty literature 

 concerning t)>e Peninsula, and five years' work in the country, I think 

 I may say that as yet no evidence has come to light of rocks older than 

 the Carboniferous, with the possible exception of inclusions of granite 

 in tuffs and of a quartz-tourmaline rock in conglomerate, both being 

 facts which are now published for the first time. 



I trust I may be pardoned if I further trespass on your valuable 

 space by mentioning another point in Dr. Verbeek's Report. On p. 756 

 Dr. Verbeek goes into some detail concerning the dip of the rocks at 

 Mount Guthrie, Singapore, where I found certain fossils described in 

 the 1906 volume of this Magazine by Mr. R. B. Kewton. The dip 

 observed by Dr. Verbeek and Dr. Molengraaf was opposite to that 



