GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF SINGAPORE. 91 
coal appears to be common coal, burning with a good deal of 
not very bright llame, and leaving a brownish earthy residuum. 
On looking at the specimens already described after a lapse of 
about live years 1 find the surface and the interstices betwixt the 
lamina} covered by copious groups of crystals of Alum. It does 
not ignite very quickly. Specimens of the accompanying strata 
shew yellowish clayey sandstone tinged by iron of a brownish 
colour; whitish sandstone; a fawn colored e rth; and a bluish white 
Clay; none of which exhibit, under a strong glass, any remains of 
plants or fishes. 
X have been exploring, during the past ten years, for coal along 
the coast to the north of Pinang, and have lately ascertained two 
localities where I think the fields are promising, I have speci¬ 
mens also brought to me by my people from other localities. An 
excursion as a passenger, which by the obliging permission of the 
Hon’ble the Goveri er of the Straits, Lieut. Colonel Butterworth, I 
made in the II. C. S. Hooghly last May, was too short to enable 
me to do so much towards a minute description of the coal field of this 
section of the Continent and its Islands, as I wished; but this may 
lie accomplished hereafter. If the Singapore sandstone strata were 
to lie betwixt the lias and the coal measures, it might be inferred 
that the red variety is the new red sandstone. Mr. T. Lay describes 
the same coal, I believe. He observes that it lies at an angle of 
45 J and is 6 feet broad, covered by powdered sandstone, bills or 
ridges of soft sandstone forced up into ridges by volcanic action. 
He supposes that the hard red sandstone which crops out was the 
original rock. 
The variety of soil in Singapore which is often found within 
the area of twenty or thirty yards is very apt to puzzle the agri¬ 
culturist who has not adverted to the cropping out of the sandstones. 
The reddish coloured sort does not yield a red, but a whitish, 
a yellowish, or a grey, soil. ' 
The white kind gives a light coloured sandy soil. The yellow 
produces a brownish one, while the blue and variegated clayish 
strata afford a great deal of red soil. 
I believe that it has been considered that the new red sandstone 
yields by decomposition a very fertile soil. I have not, however, 
been able to find in the Island any red soil directly derived from 
