360 ME. J. B. SCRIVENOE O.N THE [Julie I9I3, 



the older Raub Series, with outlying patches of Gondwana rocks 

 and the Benom Granite ; while the Main Gondwana Outcrop, less 

 disturbed by folds and faults than the Gondwana rocks of the 

 Main Range Foothills, forms the eastern limb of the anticline. 



This, then, is the foundation of the structure of the Peninsula : 

 two great anticlinoria side by side, the formation of which admitted 

 of the intrusion of the granite of the Main Range and of the Benom 

 Range. It will be noted, moreover, on the sketch-map (PI. XXXV) 

 that the prolongation of the Peninsula as far as Singapore is, in all 

 probability, due to the resistant character of the Gondwana rocks 

 n the eastern limb of the Benom anticlinorium. It is, perhaps, 

 partly due also to minor intrusions of granite that have added 

 to the power of resisting the agencies of weathering. 



XII. Special Points in connexion with the Benom Anticline. 



There are some special points worthy of note in connexion with 

 the Benom Anticline. The first concerns the Tahan Range, which 

 forms, in the north of Pahang, the western border of the Main 

 Gondwana Outcrop. This range rises to over 7000 feet, and the 

 altitude of the rest of the outcrop is insignificant compared with it. 

 Gunong Tahan is the highest peak in the Peninsula, but its raison 

 d'etre is unexplained. The extraordinary course of the Tembeling 

 River shows that the mountain must long ago have constituted a 

 formidable obstacle, turning the river sharply southwards ; but it is 

 not clear why it should be so much more resistant to denudation 

 than the rest of the Main Gondwana Outcrop. It may be that intru- 

 sions of igneous rocks which do not appear on the surface are the 

 cause : yet this hardly seems probable. A more likely explanation 

 is that when the Peninsula, in late Tertiary times or later still, was 

 an island or group of islands (a subject which will be discussed on 

 a subsequent page) the sea advanced over the greater part of the 

 Main Gondwana Outcrop, reducing it by denudation, but receded 

 before it could attack the portion of the outcrop which is now the 

 Tahan Range. 



Another circumstance is that there is a marked difference between 

 the mineral products of the Benom Anticline and those of the 

 Main Range Anticline. The chief products of the latter are tin- 

 ore and wolfram. In the former, however, tin-ore is scarce ; bub 

 gold in small quantities is widespread, while rutile and zircon are 

 known to occur in some abundance. 



Those who have read books on the Malay Peninsula will have 

 noticed references to a ' gold-belt ' stretching from Negri Sembilan 

 through. Pahang and into Kelantan. Until I had worked in Ulu 

 Pahang for some time, the existence of this belt, in which gold 

 is undoubtedly more abundant than elsewhere in the Peninsula, 

 puzzled me. It is now clear, however, that the area covered by 

 the Benom Anticline is the gold-belt; and, if one remembers that 

 the Benom granite-mass is mostly hornblende-granite, with which 

 syenites are associated, also that in this area the dacites, andesites, 



