xi. Timehri. 



At the day I assumed office as President and for some months later 

 I was credited with some knowledge of the geological and chemical 

 modes of origin of soils in the tropics, and of their suitability for intensive 

 agriculture. Before December 31st, 1897, I had forfeited, except perhaps 

 among expert scientific agriculturists, geologists, and chemists, every 

 claim to even the most rudimentary knowledge of these important 

 problems. I had committed the unforgivable sin of doubting whether 

 the " Back of Beyond : ' in British Guiana is, as it was then ascribed to be 

 by the great majority of those who had never left the coastlands, a land 

 of marvellous fertility. None of the older travellers had so described the 

 hinterland. Its remarkable fecundity was discovered in 1882 by an 

 official writer who had not visited the colony and had not 

 had any opportunity of examining its soils either chemically 

 or culturally and who wrote " In British Guiana, for instance, 

 " cultivation, so far, is wholly confined to about a dozen or 

 " fifteen miles along the sea-coast ; while the vast, rich lauds of the 

 " interior are wholly untouched " and " in British Guiana alone, there is 

 " an area of country ecjual to two Ceylons quite untouched." Although 

 the writer had no data on which to base his opinion of the richness of 

 these lands it was accepted as highly reliable and became practically 

 authoritative. 



Early in 1897 the Government directed me to examine a large series 

 of representative soils from the near interior, principally from the foot- 

 hills of the colony. I did so and no one was more astonished at the 

 nature of the soils collected and at the results of their chemical examina- 

 tions than I was. I had seen up the Demerara River near Mallali soils 

 which appeared to me to be very well suited for cacao cultivation. In fact 

 from their general appearance I expected to find them more fertile than 

 the Grenada cacao soils of which I had just completed a study. But this 

 proved not to be the case. 



The general characteristics of tbe soils examined, except of those 

 obtained from river-alluvia and valley-bottoms, were their extremely 

 high contents of insoluble constituents, either quartz-sand or pot-clay, 

 their high contents of ironstone or of bauxite, and the very low content, 

 in some cases almost complete absence, of the lime, potash and phos- 

 phoric acid and of the nitrogen the presence of which is essential to soils 

 of even medium fertility. 



Similar studies were made by many other agricultural and soil 

 chemists in other tropical lands in 1897 and during the next few years 

 with the result that the defects I considered I had found in soils from the 

 interior of British Guiana were conclusively proved to be almost universal- 

 ly characteristic of tropical residual soils on extremely ancient granitic or 

 gneissoBe, dioritic and schistose lands as well, as in places, on massive lavas. 



A great mass of scientific literature has arisen and many, not in- 

 frequently acrimonious, discussions have occurred on the modes by which 

 rocks, which under temperate or even under sub-tropical conditions give 

 rise to soils of from fair to very marked permanent fertility, in the tropics 



