GENERAL FIELD OF WORK 45 



would cover the area of four-fifths of our researches. And 

 now at the end of our stay, as we look back over the results 

 of this new experiment in tropical scientific work, we realize 

 that with all our efforts we have made only the merest be- 

 ginning, and that many men could spend their lives in prof- 

 itable research at this spot. 



Kalacoon House faces the junction of three mighty 

 rivers, hundreds of miles from their sources in the highlands 

 of Venezuela and Brazil; at our back door begins a jungle 

 through which one might wander as far as San Francisco 

 from New York without meeting a human being. Our 

 province in general is a colony less in size than Colorado, 

 and our chosen plot for research is of equal area with Cen- 

 tral Park in New York City. 



The geology of Bartica district is not of great interest. 

 Indeed, looking at the panorama encircling Kalacoon House, 

 one is unconscious of any evidence of earthly inorganic 

 structure; vegetation fills the landscape. We have passed 

 the low, marshy alluvial coastal zone, and have not yet 

 reached the mountainous hinterland. Here we have rolling 

 hills covered with dense high jungle, trisected by the navi- 

 gable waters of the three great rivers, and veined with many 

 small creeks. When we come to examine the rocks which 

 here and there protrude through the foliage or become visible 

 at low water, we find that the general aspect of the skeleton 

 of the country is not unlike that around New York City. 



At low tide, bare rocks are visible almost in mid-stream, 

 stretching directly across the bottom and several miles up 

 the river, where this great belt of grey granite here and 

 there breaks through the evergreen mass of vegetation. 

 This is one of the most recent of the basal igneous rocks of 

 the colony. No fossils are found anywhere, even in the 

 sandstone farther down river. The rocky islets off Bartica 

 are a dark hornblende-schist. This completes the tale of 

 the stone, except for an interesting vein of quartz extending 

 across a tiny stream near Kalacoon, which has been found 



