THE GEOLOGY OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 253: 
important being at Namma, where the area is fifteen miles long and 
three and a half miles wide. The coal seams are confined to the 
lower portion of the series. The dip averages 20°, but it varies con- 
siderably locally, perhaps due to underground solution of the lime- 
stone floor. The inferiority of the coal, and the distance of the: 
field from the railway, make it doubtful if it is worth while to- 
start mining operations, 
Similar lacustrine deposits occur in different parts of Indo: 
China. 
Tertiary of Malay Peninsula. 
In the Malay Peransula Tertiary. beds with interbedded coal’ 
seams are known 1m three localities. at Rantau Flanjang (in 
Selangor), at Enggor (in Perak), and in Perlis. 
At Rantau Panjang, the coal seams are being profitably worked. 
the fuel fincdimg a ready sale, for use in the tin mines and railways 
of the Peninsula. The thickness of the beds is not known with 
certainty. It appears that coal seams, interbedded with sands and 
and shales, form the lower portion of the series, and that they are- 
overlain by several hundred feet of shales which contain a little oil, 
not enough to pav for distillation. According to the uswal proce- 
dure, this coal should be classed as a lignite. Its percentage of 
fixed carbon is less, and its percentage of moisture js higher, than 
that of some cheap Indian coals, and these are unfavourable proper-. 
ties, but its low percentage of ash, and the fact that it does not 
clinker, are properties in its favour. 
The percentage of moisture in the Rantau Panjang coal (about 
20 %) indicates an upper Miocene age. The dips in these Miocene- 
beds range from 10° to 12°. 
When this occurrence was the only Tertiarv deposit that had 
been prospected in the Peninsula, it was thought to be a lake or 
swamp deposit, similar to those in the Northern Shan States, 
although it was then also held to be probable that its present small 
area, (which amounts to only a few square miles), does not represent 
the whole of the original area of deposition, but that much of it 
has been removed by denudation. However, the discovery of over 
90 feet of calcareous shale, at Enggor, lying under Tertiary sands, 
shales, (some of which are themselves calcareous), and interbedded 
coal seams, suggests that the Enggor deposits, at any rate, are pro- 
bably not lacustrine deposits, but marine, and that the deposits 
might have been comparable in extent with those of Sumatra and 
Burma if the Peninsula had not been subjectel to severe erosion in 
post-Miocene times. 
In Perlis the area and thickness of the coal bearing beds is. 
unproved. A bore was made to a depth of 205 feet and was then 
stopped in June 1921, owing to lack of casing. Sands, clays and 
R, A. Soc., No. 86 1922. 
