I 



Notes on the Society's Work in 1897-1918. xxiii. 



" which are evidently of very considerable fertility. The dolerites 

 " here are deep-seated representatives of the West Indian lavas and 

 " where dolerite occurs we should find soils similar to those in 

 " Grenada and they should be suitable for coffee, cacao, and spices." 



" Where green-stone or trap dykes occur the soils appear to be 

 " fertile and well suited to cacao, coffee, and spices, hence probably 

 "in the interior there must be many fertile valleys and hillsides. 



" The granite and gneiss of the Colony produce either sands or 

 " cold heavy clays (here usually the latter) which are of low fertility. 



" In the interior of the Colony the belt or ridge of sand hills, 

 "from 30 to 50 miles in breadth, is useless, except for the support of 

 " forest. But in places on the lower hillsides are soils derived in 

 "part from indura;ed clay, which appear to be very fertile and 

 " which might be cultivated in cacao, coffee, or spices." 

 The indurated clay alluded to in the above quotations is the argil- 

 laceous laterite or resilicified bauxite which covers large areas in the 

 more northerly parts of the interior of the country. The green- 

 stone or trap dykes comprise the large areas where the country is either 

 a fairly recent diabase or dolerite or an epidiorite or hornblende-schist, 

 the metamorphic products of an ancient gabbro or diabase. 



Where the country consists of sericite-schist or of chlorite-schist it is 

 usually of fair to satisfactory fertility although the surface soils are from a 

 chemical point of view somewhat poor ; the soils on the schists are generally 

 of great depth whilst their lower layers are interspersed with numerous frag- 

 ments of decaying rock. The finest forests I have seen in my travels in 

 the Colony are on lands of this nature occupying great areas between 

 the Barama, Mazaruni and Puruni rivers. These schistose-lands are well 

 suited for the establishment of arboricultural ventures such as coffee, cacao, 

 limes and Para rubber. 



Since 1897 several hundreds of samples of soils from the interior of 

 the Colony have been analytically examined in the Government Labo- 

 ratory, whilst I have personally visited many parts of the interior of the 

 Colony, but I have found no reason for modifying my opinion as to the 

 distribution of its soil resources for intensive agricultural purposes. 



In April, 1907, when reading in London a paper on the resources of 

 the Colony I summarised the results of our enquiries to that date as fol- 

 lows : — 



. . . . " The results of the examinations of the various parts of the 

 " Colony and of the soils characterising them have shown that it 

 " must be divided into three great belts, each of which has its own 

 " special economic resources. The belts are as follows : — 



"1. The alluvial coast-belt is an agricultural one of very ex- 

 ceptional fertility, and its soils are probably among the richest and 

 "most fertile ones in the tropical parts of the world. It is well suited 

 " for many forms of tropical agriculture. 



