Scientific Travellers, 349 



his old acquaintances, the Wauguwai and Amucu mountains, near the 

 junction of the Yuawauri with the Essequibo. The highest moun- 

 tains in the vicinity of the Upper Takutu cannot be less than 5000 

 feet. All the mountains are granitic, with masses of quartz, but no 

 igneous rocks were seen. . Mr. Schomburgk has made observations of 

 the magnetic intensity at Waraputa, at Pirara, and near the sources 

 of the Takutu, &c. The tropical winter commenced on Sunday the 

 29th of May, an uncommonly late period. He has subsequently re- 

 turned to Demerara in good health. We learn also that one of the 

 silver medals of the Societe de Geographie of Paris has been awarded 

 to him for his researches in Guiana. 



Notice of the Vegetation in the neighbourhood of Georgetown, Deme- 

 rara, in a letter from Dr. W. H. Campbell to Professor Balfour, 

 dated Aug. 16th, 1842. 



Dr. Campbell writes, " I have only had two days' recreation since 

 I arrived in this country, and one of these I devoted to a regular ex- 

 ploration into the Bush, about nine miles up the Demerara river. Some 

 of the vegetable wonders and novelties I saw were truly magnificent, 

 the luxuriance of the vegetation surpassing anything you can con- 

 ceive. Every inch of ground was occupied, and the eye looked in 

 vain for any spot which nature had left unclothed and less bounti- 

 fully supplied than that immediately around you. Indeed, it seemed 

 as if there was one dire scramble for existence, and that each was 

 striving with might and main to reach the upper light and air, lest, 

 being left behind in the race, the forfeiture of life should be the 

 penalty. Rapid as is the growth of these children of the forest, no less 

 rapid is their decay ; and race after race spring into being, rear their 

 heads ambitiously for a while and pass away, to be succeeded by their 

 children, who scramble over them with parricidal haste. A slower 

 but no less certain fate awaits the oldest denizens of the forest. A 

 climbing palm sending forth his grappling arms clutches one in his- 

 embrace, and gradually spreading and accumulating a huge weight 

 of vegetation upon him, some gigantic limb, or the whole tree, 

 destroyer and destroyed, are borne to the earth ; the one to die, but 

 the other — the immortal palm — to rise again, and continue with re- 

 newed vigour and pliant limb his onward and destructive progress. 

 Others again, like the monarchs of the forest, still rear their heads 

 triumphant ; but they too must die, for the bush-rope is festooning 

 his branches, epiphytes are insinuating themselves in every crevice,, 

 and the birds are daily sowing the seeds of vines and parasites, 

 which, although apparently renewing the youth of the tree and deco- 

 rating it with the most graceful drapery, are eating into its very 

 vitals and feeding on its heart's blood, till limb by limb down goes 

 the old veteran at last, — a noble wreck amidst the upstart generation 

 who are rising around him and hastening his decay. The insidious 

 fungus soon completes the wreck, and fibre by fibre the giant trunk 

 is resolved into its pristine elements. 



" One of the species of bush-rope which I saw is most curious, 

 and by far the most fantastic production of nature I have ever met 



