1847.] including Notices of Sumatra, the Malay 'Peninsula, fyc. 681 



tion of the granitic and trappean rocks in situ," and, without giving a 

 decided opinion, says " the heds of lignite discovered by General Cullan 

 and myself in the laterite of Malabar and Travancore and the deposits 

 of petrified wood in the Red Hills of Pondichery, in a rock which, 

 though differing in structure, I consider as identical in age with the 

 laterite, and other facts too long for enumeration here, points rather to 

 its detrital origin like sandstone"* {Journal of the Asiatic Society of 

 Bengal, Vol. XIII. p. 995, 1844.) Mr. Darwin, I may mention in 

 passing, seems to lean to a similar opinion with respect to analogous 

 rocks noticed by him. " The origin of these superficial beds," he says, 

 " though sufficiently obscure, seems to be due to alluvial action on 

 detritus abounding with iron." (Volcanic Islands, p. 143). 



The first lateritic locality which I visited on my arrival here was the 

 Island of Pulo U'poe, from which much laterite has been removed for 

 building purposes, and where it continues to be cut. The first fragment 

 which I knocked off the rock at once satisfied me that my theory was 

 correct. It was a rock totally different in its original character from 

 any which I have found at the southern extremity of the Peninsula, 

 but which, by the same agency that altered the ordinary sedimentary 

 rocks there, had been transformed from a common argillo-micaceous 

 schist into a rock undistinguishable, save on minute inspection, and, 

 where the alteration has been great, absolutely undistinguishable from 

 some of the altered sedimentary shales and clays of Singapore. Upon 

 careful examination I found, as I expected, in the sections afforded by 

 the coast of this little islet, the original unaltered micaceous rock with 

 great bands or dykes and overlying masses, exhibiting abundant varieties 

 of transformation from a rock slightly discoloured by the ferruginous 

 action through several lateritic types, to the calcined slaggy form in 

 which the original composition and structure are wholly obliterated. 

 I cannot enter into further particulars. My subsequent examination 

 of about fifty miles of the coast from Pulo Arang Arang (P. x\rram) 

 southward, and of a portion of the interior of Malacca, has proved 

 that the whole of this region has been originally composed in a great 

 measure of the same argillo-micaceous schist. I shall hereafter give 



* I have read all Captain Newbold's papers with the attention which they deserve, and 

 I think every fact which he notices in his notes on laterite tracts is reconcileable with 

 the theory which 1 maintain, 



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