﻿1851.] 



LOGAN — GEOLOGY OF SINGAPORE, 



323 



existed, — and sand. The plain consists of the same matter, sand 

 and vegetable mnd prevailing towards the surface in all the eastern 

 part, where alone a considerable extent of either is found. The 

 inner part of the plain, before it was cleared and partially drained, 

 formed there a large marsh called Paya Lebar (broad marsh) with a 

 deep bed of black vegetable mud in which a dense forest grew. The 

 outer part, towards the range of sandstone hills forming the eastern 

 margin of the plain, is a sandy flat, which, as it extends to the west, 

 divides into long permatangs, with flats of clay and vegetable matter 

 between them. The upper or eastern part of these flats often con- 

 tains a considerable proportion of sand. The more inland banks 

 continue across the inner part of the plain, making the first continu- 

 ous coasts of the bay. Others, deflected in different directions, but 

 generally trending more to the west and to the south of west, traverse 

 the plain ; the penultimate one extending along the Changgie road up 

 to Kampong Glam, and the latest forming the present coast termina- 

 ting at Tanjong Ru. Although the force of the north-west monsoon 

 has laid down the sandy debris of the eastern cliffs in these long per- 

 matangs extending to the western side of the plain, deflected all the 

 eastern streams in the same direction, and is even bending to the 

 west the mouths of the western streams themselves, and driving them 

 all up into the extreme S.W. corner, where there will probably be ulti- 

 mately but one outlet for all the waters that fall into the harbour, yet 

 there are records of a time when the western side of the plain and the 

 western inlets had their own permatangs. One of the most distinctly 

 marked runs transversely to these inlets, or from S.W. to N.E., and 

 it must have been formed while the greater part of the plain traversed 

 by the permatangs from, the east was covered by the sea. The only 

 point where the Siglap sandstone-ranges are now wasting is at the 

 Red Cliff's, but the hills stretching to the west of this for about a mile 

 and a half, and gradually retiring from the present line of coast, are 

 sharply scarped at all their points which project on the sandy plain, 

 and the scarping of those forming the S.W. angle of the range was 

 probably coseval with the formation of the permatang in question*. 



Shells are found, often very abundantly, in the alluvial clay. Beds 

 of Coral are also occasionally met with. The infrequency of deep 

 excavations is probably the reason why, in localities inhabited from 

 very ancient timesf, human remains are so seldom brought to light. 

 In the inner part of the Singapore plain a piece of coir-rope was found 

 6 feet below the surface, and a piece of wood bored through, and 

 having the hole filled with the twisted fibres of a piece of rope, was 

 found in the town of Singapore at a depth of 40 feet. Mr. Thom- 

 son bored through 10 feet of blue mud and 30 feet of ferruginous 



* The permatangs of Singapore are inferior both in length and elevation to 

 those of the large plain of Province Wellesley, facing Pinang, which have been 

 formed by the waves of the Bay of Bengal. For further information on this sub- 

 ject consult the section headed Rivers and Alluvial Formations in my " Sketch of 

 the Physical Geography and Geology of the Malay Peninsula," Journ. Ind. Arch, 

 vol. ii. pp. 116 to 136. 



f Journ. Ind. Arch. vol. i. p. 300, 302, and vol. ii. p. 517. 



z 2 



