.» 1 1 On the Local and Relative Geology of Singapore, [June, 



but various other curvilinear ranges proceeding S. E., E., N. E., and 

 N. through China, and N. and N. W. through Thibet, and lastly, the 

 Himalayas and a minor range proceeding south-eastward on the south 

 of the valley of Assam, and continued perhaps in the Vindyas, — for a 

 subsequent line of subsidence passing down the plain of the Ganges 

 and through the Bay of Bengal, of which there is some evidence, may 

 have destroyed the pre-existing continuity. Many of these ranges 

 proceed primarily from the Kulkun, but it is remarkable that they con- 

 verge towards the region indicated. The region where the Himalayas 

 attain their sublimest proportions and give birth to rivers that embrace 

 them and all India in their courses, is another grand focus. From this 

 centre the range proceeds on the one side to the eastward, and on the 

 other to the N. W. To the north of the former a secondary and ap- 

 proximately parallel range also proceeds eastward, and includes with it 

 the valley of the Sanpao, and to the south another and smaller second- 

 ary parallel range traverses upper India. To determine the original 

 centres of maximum intensity and directions of the forces that elevated 

 the great connected mountain system that forms the skeleton of the 

 Asiatic continent, is a problem beyond the present reach of geology.* 



The Malayan chain I have mentioned as a series of groups, and from 

 the breadth of country which their members occupy compared with 

 their height and apparent bulk, and their general appearance as viewed 

 from the Straits, I am led to believe that they consist of connected 

 systems, each analogous to that of the Singapore hills, or of principal 

 undulating masses from which parallel ranges proceed in a N. \V. and 

 S. E. direction. The rivers probably have their sources at the heads 

 of the valleys included between these ranges and turn seaward at the 



* There can be little doubt that an extensive knowledge of the physical and mineralogi- 

 cal constitution of mountain ranges will form the true basis of the highest department of 

 the science, now only dawning, — the Mechanism of the Earth. But the day is probably 

 not far distant when the geologist, like the astronomer, will need to be thoroughly in- 

 doctrinated with the principles of mechanical science in its widest sense. Fortunately 

 for the worshippers of nature of humbler acquirements, geology is so immersed in matter, 

 so wrought into every inch of the earth, that its Priests have need of a whole tribe of 

 Levites. Wherever a man finds himself placed he has but to employ his eyes to become 

 a useful labourer, and so far will a little knowledge be from proving dangerous to him 

 that it may be safely said, that while even entire ignorance is not a bar to the collection 

 of facts, every little accession of knowledge from any of the sciences becomes an instru- 

 ment of observation. 



