> 4 ss 
i 
r 
NoTes—Cuyun! GOLp MINING DISTRICT. 85 
—— 
By the appointment of Surveyors as Government 
Officers, it is to be hoped that maps of the different 
distriéts, necessarily rough at first, but constantly being 
extended and improved, may gradually be made. As 
these maps become more and more reliable, the existing 
roads can be altered, and made to run more direétly and 
with easier gradients to the river’s bank than they now 
do, and effeét thereby a great saving of time and labour. 
The general distribution of the gold-bearing areas may 
then also be better defined; the occurrence of gold in 
the Colony better understood, and some guide furnished 
whereby other rich fields may be discovered. 
The Cuyuni distri€t geologically speaking promises 
extremely well for the future of the Gold Mining In- 
dustry. The principal rocks are metamorphic, and con- 
sist largely of shales, slates, schists and gneiss, pierced 
in many places by extensive igneous rocks. Quartz 
appears to be abundant every where. 
On the journey up, as the river was only about half 
full of water, I had many opportunities of examining 
the rocks. Granite occurs near the Penal Settlement 
and in many places along the course of the stream, 
being frequently highly quartziferous. Mica-schist is 
found at the lower part of the Caribise Matope, while a 
short distance above there is diorite. At the Arrawak 
Matope an indurated slate with veins and nests of bluish 
quartz impedes the free passage of the river. At Mutusi 
and Tukuri rapids, dolerite is met with, while at Quartz- 
stone Island large blocks of white vitreous quartz are 
plainly visible when the river is low. Quartz of the 
same nature lies scattered in all dire€tions in the part 
of the country visited, and on some hill tops there are 
