﻿part 3] STANNIFEROUS DEPOSITS OF KINTA DISTRICT. 



179 



When it is remembered that the Kinta River flows from north 

 to south through the middle of the Kinta Valley, and that it 

 carries the whole of the valley-waters, it becomes, indeed, a 

 remarkable accident that the tourmaline-corundum rocks should 

 coincide absolutely with the western half of the drainage- system 

 of the valley. It would be reasonable to expect that clays and 

 boulder-clays, which had been transported by ice moving from 

 west to east from Gondwanaland, would during their long journey 

 •of several hundred miles have every opportunity of becoming 

 mixed up to form a heterogeneous deposit. But the coincidence 

 becomes still more remarkable when it is pointed out that pure 

 •corundum- boulders are found on the east of the Kinta Valley, and 

 that they have never been found on the west. 1 These facts alone, 

 namely, that tourmaline-corundum boulders occurring in clays 

 supposed to be of glacial origin and of Permo- Carboniferous age 

 are confined to the western drainage-area, that the corundum- 

 boulders are confined to the eastern drainage-area, and that both 

 have never been found together in a valley which came into 

 existence in post-Cretaceous times, present, in my opinion, an 

 insuperable objection to the glacial theory of the origin of these 

 beds. The explanation which is suggested for this extraordinary 

 •coincidence is quite inconsistent with what is known of glacial 

 deposits in any other part of the world. It is stated that 



' it would be possible to accourt for the absence of corundum-boulders on the 

 west by supposing them to have been carried over that area by ice without 

 any being dropped ; and a further possibility would suggest itself of the 

 tourmaline-corundum rocks having been in part brought from a distant 

 source by ice.' 



This means that a glacier, or a sheet of ice, laden with corundum - 

 and tourmaline-corundum rocks carefully selected the east side of 

 the valley for the deposition of the former, and the west side 

 for the deposition of the latter, and that the dividing-line between 

 supposed Permo- Carboniferous deposits of the east and those of 

 the west coincided with the present main drainage of a valley 

 which was not then in existence, but was formed in much later 

 geological time. It will be instructive at this juncture to com- 

 pare the descriptions given by Mr. Scrivenor of these eastern and 

 western clays. 



Western clays and boulder- Eastern clays and boulder- 



Contain tourmaline-corundum rocks. 2 Do not contain tourmaline-corundum 



rocks. 2 



Do not contain pure corundum-rocks. 2 Contain pure corundum-rocks. 2 



distinct bedding.' 4 

 ' On the east stratification in the 

 clays has been preserved.' 0 

 ' The boulders all of the same sort The different kinds of boulders are 



clays. 



clays. 



Show little signs of bedding. 3 



Show ' for the most part a fairly 



are more massed together on the 

 west than on the east.' 3 



mixed together. 3 



1 ' The Geology & Mining Industry of the Kinta District ' 1913, p. 28. 



2 Ibid. p. 28. 3 Ibid. p. 39. 4 Ibid. p. 32. 5 Ibid. p. 41. 



