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



aquifers tapped at greater depths than 500 feet are exceptionally pure 

 and uncontauiinated, the sole objection to them being their iron-content, 

 which, however, is usually less than a grain of ferrous iron to the 

 Imperial gallon. An unlimited supply of uncontaminated underground 

 water is one of the most important mineral resources of any country and 

 this is now known to be a characteristic potentiality of British Guiana. 



Water Power Resources. 

 The vast water-power resources of British Guiana have not hitherto 

 received the attention they deserve although they are among the most 

 valuable of the potentialities of the colony. The great falls and the long- 

 extended series of cataracts on several of its large rivers must in time 

 attract the attention of capitalists, electrical engineers and technologists 

 in search of water-power and then be utilised as sources of electric energy. 

 That energy will be employed as power in quartz-mining and gold-milling, 

 in hydraulic installations and in dredging-plants for the exploitation of the 

 still very extensive placer gold-deposits, for power in connection with 

 the timber-industries, as a motive force for the railway we trust will 

 traverse the interior and possibly as a source of heat and chemical energy 

 in reduction-plants for aluminium, iron and perhaps other metals. 



Topographical and Technical Surveys of the Interior. 



It is admitted generally that in this present time of stress we can- 

 not look for any immediate flow of capital to the colony with the object 

 of developing its great resources by supplying it with modern means for 

 travel and general transport. Are we justified in resting content in the 

 hope that at some future period some prominent financial magnate, thirst- 

 ing for opportunities of investing his surplus monetary accumulations, may 

 discover the colony, personally enquire into its resources, map it out, and 

 proceed to develop it, — not for our benefit but for his own ? In my 

 opinion this is the time when colonists should be taking steps towards 

 accurately extending the world's knowledge of their country. A topo- 

 graphical and technical or economic survey of the country is an absolute 

 necessity before any steps can be taken with reasonable security for ite 

 development. We know a little — a very little — more of the potentialities 

 of the country than we did in 1897, but in reality we do not know much 

 more than was known, or suspected on reliable grounds, about them in 

 1851. Our present maps are largely sketch-maps, and thus cannot serve as 

 reliable guides for the details of the country for would-be investors. A 

 detailed topographical survey of the interior of the colony is a crying 

 necessity at the present time ; it should be supplemented by mineralogical 

 and forestal reconnaissances, carried on in greater or less detail as condi- 

 tions require, and thus the survey would become, as it gradually approached 

 completion, one of the most important assets of the colony. A com- 

 mencement is being made this year by a survey of portions of the 

 northern section of the colony which are regarded of promise in connec- 

 tion with bauxite and other minerals of economic importance ; but there 



