Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra23241891roya).pdf/169

 OCCASIONAL NOTES.

 DISCOVERY OF A STONE IMPLEMENT IN SINGAPORE.

A short time ago, Lieutenant A. D. Cox, while walking on a road at the barracks at Tanglin, picked up from among the laterite which was being put on the road a large stone implement, which he has presented to the Museum. The weapon is five inches in length and nearly four inches across and about one and a half thick in the thickest part. It is oblong, with one end abruptly truncate, the other ground off to a rounded cutting edge. It is a good deal worn, and at one spot bears a small coral, showing that it had recently come from the sea. It is of a dark chocolate-brown externally, but by dipping it a little at one corner it was found to be composed of a very hard compact granite containing very small flakes of mica. On enquiry I found that the contractor who was laying down the laterite had obtained it from Tanjong Karang on the West Coast of Singapore. This spot I have since visited, and found that the stone was being taken from below high water mark, which would account for the presence of the coral upon the specimen. Tanjong Karang is a small promontory, consisting of a core of rather hard iron-stone, covered with about two feet of humus and gravelly soil. There is what is called a Kramat at the corner nearest to the spot whence the specimen must have come, but this Kramat merely consists of a detached block of iron-stone, which in shape more or less resembles a tomb. The overlying soil on the promontory has so shifted from denudation that it is impossible to get any idea of its age; fragments of modern pottery occurring even at the part where it rests on the iron-stone. I sought carefully for any more weapons, but could find none, and indeed it was hardly to be expected, as they are almost always found singly here.