Liberia 



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December, 1901, the transfer of the charter in an amended form 

 from the Union Minnig Company to the West African Gold 

 Concessions, Limited, was sanctioned by an Act of Congress. 

 Colonel Powney travelled through part of Liberia to investigate 

 its possibilities in 1903. Soon after his return his company 

 changed its name to that of the Liberian Development Chartered 

 Company. Some further modifications were introduced into 

 the tenure of this company's charter (which conveyed mining 

 rights over the counties of Montscrrado and Maryland, and 

 general banking, railway, telegraph, and other rights throughout 

 Liberia) in August, 1904, and January, 1906. 



The Chartered Company between 1902 and 1904 dispatched 

 six expeditions to search the hinterland for minerals ; and in 

 1903 engaged Mr. Alexander Whyte, F.L.S., to make a thorough 

 investigation of the Liberian flora. The results of Mr. Whyte's 

 work have been of some importance to science : he has done 

 for the flora of Liberia what Biittikofer did for the fauna. 



In 1904 a great step was mads towards the extension of 

 Liberian rule over the hinterland of this country. President 

 Arthur Barclay, who had succeeded the Hon. G. W. 

 Gibson on January ist, 1904,^ summoned to Monrovia an 

 important congress of "kings" and chiefs from the interior, 

 chiefly from the Gora, Boporo, and Kpwesi countries. In 1903 

 missions had been dispatched under native commissioners to 

 places on the Cavalla River a hundred miles and more from 

 the coast, and also to native towns and markets at about a 

 similar distance up the St. Paul's River, not only to hoist the 

 Liberian flag, but to endeavour to assuage the internecine wars 



^ President Barclay was born in Barbados in 1854. He came to Liberia in 

 1865, and entered the public service in 1878, becoming first Clerk to House of 

 Representatives, and then successively Judge of the Court of Quarter Sessions; 

 Sub-Treasurer, Montserrado ; Postmaster-General ; and Secretary to the Treasury. 

 He has been re-elected for a fresh term of office from January ist, 1906. 



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