SURVEYING AND MAPPING BRITISH GUIANA. 
By R. 0.1 i SPENCE. 
That there is no reliable Map of a eae of this Colony and that there 
is the need for such a map, has attracted a considerable amount of attention 
within recent years, and it is now generally conceded that the making of an 
accurate map is of great importance at the present stage of the Colony’s his- 
tory. 
At the meeting of the Combined Court on the 27th February last, 
the following motion by Mr. G. Russell Garnett, F.R., was discussed. 
“ Whereas the available information as to the resources and geographical 
*« features of the hinterland of the colony is unreliable and insufticient, thereby 
“retarding the possibility of its development ; Be it resolved, that this Court 
“authorizes a sum of money being raised by loan under the provisions of the 
“ Public Loan Ordinance, 1896, sufficient to defray the cost of making a full 
“and comprehensive survey of the whole or such portions of the colony as 
“may be deemed expedient.” 
His Excellency the Acting Governor, in putting the motion to the vote, 
stated that it would be only an expression of opinion, and on the motion 
being put to the Court it was carried. 
The subject of a survey of the Colony it will thus be seen, has already quite 
recently engaged the attention of the ‘authorities. 
The area of British Guiana computed from the existing maps is given as 
90,277 square miles, and with this large area to deal with, and as the major 
part of the country is covered by, more or less, dense forest, a survey of the 
Colony of whatever nature, must necessarily take some years to execute and 
cost a considerable sum of money. 
The portions of the Colony situate on the coast and the banks of the lower 
reaches of the rivers which have been alienated from the Crown; the boundary 
between this Colony and Venezuela demarcated by the British and Venezuelan 
Commissioners in 1901-1904; the portion of the boundary between the colony 
and Brazil extending from Mt. Yakontipu along the courses of the Ireng and 
Takutu Rivers to Mt. Win-tawa at the source of the latter river, surveyed by 
Mr. C. W. Anderson, I.S.0., in 1906; and other information on record in the 
Department of Lands and Mines, are available, but they together form only a 
small fraction of the data required to be obtamed before an accurate frame. 
work map of the Colony can be made. 
A detailed topographical survey of the Colony would be a most costly under- 
taking and is not required at the present time, but the want that is felt is the 
need for a reliable frame-work map, and I will therefore confine myself to 
dealing with the question from that point of view. 
