THE METALLIFEROUS f ORMATIOtf OP THE PENINSULA, 195 



The soil is generally of a very poor description. With the 

 exception of a few patches of good limestone country, it is 

 a granite formation of recent date, slowly undergoing decom- 

 position, and as yet quite unable to cope with the rich loams 

 of such countries as Cuba or Java. Malays do not grow 

 sufficient rice for their own consumption and with the 

 exception of consumption tin, nearly all that comes under 

 the title of " Straits produce," comes from other countries, 

 and merely rests at Singapore and other ports for tranship- 

 ment. The tin produce, and the consequent importation of 

 Chinese miners, being so essential to the prosperity of the 

 country, I have gathered together a few notes, made during 

 exploring expeditions, with a view to ascertain the root, di- 

 rection, and source from whence these alluvial deposits are 

 shed. 



Starting from Tanjong Tohor, a few miles S. E. of the 

 Moar River, a line in a northerly direction would pass at 

 first through the old gold workings of Tanjong Tohor and 

 the neighbouring hills of Bukit Formosa, thence to the gold 

 leaders of Chindras, Mount Ophir and the River Kesang 

 and to the extensive tin deposits of the KCsang and the 

 eastern boundary of the Malacca Territory. There is no 

 doubt in my mind that Chindras is on a spur or leader from 

 the main reef, the gold being found in pockets or nests ; but 

 gold leaders are often richer than the main reef, and if the 

 enterprising Directors of the defunct Chindras Company 

 had sunk deeper than they did (their deepest shaft being 

 only about 100 feet they might have reached a more com- 

 pact body of stone. 



I would shew a piece of tin ore that was got at Chin-Chin, 

 on a tributary of the river Kosang here the tin is firmly 

 inbedded in a piece of rock that was formerly granite and 

 has been subject to volcanic influences. The leader from 

 which this was picked up cannot be far from the line of the 

 lode which I believe to exist in a direction show by the red 

 line on this Map. Diverging from the northerly line and 

 striking in a 1ST. E. direction, the rich alluvial deposits of 

 gold, all fine steam gold are reached on the Segamet River, 

 a valuable river in Johor where every facility would be given 

 by His Highness the Maharaja to Europeans to open up 

 mines and whose letters to native rajas wore most serviceable 

 to me when I went across the Peninsula to Pahang. 



Still in a northerly direction, the tin-mines of Penarek 

 and Jumpol are reached thence to the tin-mines of Sunge 



