96 GEOLOGICAL FEAT DUES OF SINGAPORE. 
name would be laterite from lateritus. The laterite of Malabar 
contains some lime. * 
Captain Franklin observes, a that the granite at Herapore is 
capped by heaps of ferruginous conglomerate, which last is con¬ 
nected with a stratum of iron ore, and on this last the new red 
sandstone reposes.” *J- 
These two last strata were produced of course subsequently 
to the protrusion of the granite and the conversion of its outer 
portion into the conglomerate, if this last be not meant to imply 
a breccia containing fragments of other rocks than the granite. 
This condition or assigned origin would be quite sufficient to 
stamp it with a distinctive and uniform character. Whereas the 
Singapore ironstone is the result of deposits in water of the de¬ 
bris of primary rocks. In this state in Malabar it looks origi¬ 
nally like a gritty clay, mottled red and white. The Natives of 
Malabar build their houses with this substance. The iron it con¬ 
tains becoming further oxvdized by exposure acts as a cement, 
and helps to change the mass from its original greyish colour to 
a dark brown or reddish brown, while the contraction of the clay 
in drving produces the internal cavities alluded to. The stratum of 
clay or decomposed granite which lies nearest to the parent ruck 
on the Pinang hills much resembles externally this Malabar late- 
jite, but it scarcely hardens on exposure. The Malacca rock of 
which the old Dutch fort was built, approaches much nearer than 
that of Singapore to the Malabar laterite. 
I have traced this lateritic formation up to the latitude of Junk- 
ceylon, and I suspect that it exists in a more or less perfect state 
along the whole of the western coast of the Bay of Bengal where 
that is backed by granitic mountains, and perhaps where it is so by 
other primary rocks. When the granite is highly micaceous and 
felspathic, its decomposition may, I think, be expected to afford a 
perfect laterite. 
When the Singapore lateritic ironstone occurs as a substratum, it 
bears marks iu its dark brown colour and its imbedded pebbles, 
of having been once a surface one. This stone is more continuous¬ 
ly and extensively distributed on the small bills and undulations in 
* As Res. vol. ni. p. 4-10 
-f Geological Acct. ©f a Tart ef India, p. 75. 
