GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF SINGAPORE. 
87 
and crystalline sandstones should be so close to the surface, and by 
what pressure, in the absence of other strata, were they consolida¬ 
ted? The clays which overlie them could hardly have afforded 
sufficient pressure. 
The force which filled these sandstones, seems, as I have already 
observed, to have been unequal. Thus at the Government Hill,— 
where a deep section of 40 to 50 feet was made during the con¬ 
struction of a road past its south end, these strata, which I judge 
to have been from 12 to 15 feet thick each, appear to have been 
suddenly and violently disrupted, for large and very acute angled 
masses of what I suppose to have formed the lowest strata, have 
been pushed to the surface, and lie imbedded unconformably in the 
clays which were disturbed at the same time. Some of these blocks, 
indeed almost all of them, had tO'be blasted with gunpowder be¬ 
fore they could be rendered manageable for the purposes of build¬ 
ing. The effects of similar disruption may be seen on “Prinsep’s 
Hill.” These very irregular shaped and acute angled blocks are of 
a reddish, of a brown, or of a grey sandstone. 
The clays consist of red iron clay, and its shades, white felspa- 
thic clay, purple and yellow ochry and grey clays, bluish and green¬ 
ish, and state coloured, clays, and clays striated with various tints 
resembling decomposed granite in situ , before it has become con¬ 
verted by exposure into laterite. Where not so broken up, these 
clays exhibited the common appearances of stratification, and have 
become somewhat indurated. These clayey strata, where the force 
has been even considerable, have, owing to their flexibility, been 
only bent instead of being broken to pieces. They afford therefore 
good indices of the volcanic or upheaving force which has been ap¬ 
plied in different places. 
The annexed sketch fig. 1. exhibits a section of the hill at the tank 
on the right of the road passing up the slope of Oxley’s Hill beyond 
Government Hill to the west. The angle of elevation is about 
10° to 25°, the dip about N. E. 
No. 1. Pieddish soil, upper stratum. 2 ft. 
2. Ferruginous gravelly red soil wiLh clay, . 1 to 10 ft. 
3. Yellowish, brownish and red sandstone, 
coarse and soft,. ..*. 1 ft. 6 in 
4. Lamellar variegated and indurated clays 
