THE GOLD INDUSTRY OF BRITISH GUIANA. 
By W. A. Duwy. 
There is one thing at least that must have struck the casual observer 
in connection with the Gold Industry of British Guiana, and that is the 
rather extensive production, in the absence of systematic mechanical 
appliances. The gold output, commencing in 1884 with an export of 
250 ounces, rose rapidly to 138,527 ozs., 16 dwts. in 1898, and to date 
aggregates a total of 2,247,454 ozs., valued at $39,330,455.58. 
It is interesting to note that our production at one time placed 
British Guiana among the ten gold-producing countrics of the world, as 
shown in the following extract taken from a report to the Council of the 
Institute of Mines and Forests on the Gold and Forest Industries of 
British Guiana for the year ending June 30th, 1895, by T. S. Hargreaves, 
¥.G.S., F.K.G.S., Secretary :—‘“ Under the auspices of the Government, 
and with the ass stance of the British Guiana Bank, specimens from our 
goldfields were last year exhibited in London, A most useful and 
instructive handbook was compiled by Mr. H. I. Perkins, F.R.G.S., and 
published at the expense of the Government and distributed in London 
at the same time. By these means, and from the fact which is just be- 
ginning to be realised, tha British Guiana now stands by no means last 
of the first ten gold-producing countries of the world, a considerable 
amount of attention has been directed to the colony and its mineral 
resources.” 
The localities over which this yield has been won is spread over an 
equally extensive area ; not that large areas have been worked, but the 
finds have been made ina belt of country, stretching in a N.E. and S.W. 
direction, practically across the whole colony, with the notable exception 
of the county of Berbice, from which no remunerative workings have yet 
been recorded. A glance at the map will show that this belt con- 
tinues in a direct line to the famous Caratal district in Venezuela, in 
which is situated the world-reputed “ E] Callao Gold Mines.” 
The gold production may be said to have been almost entirely due 
to ths placer workings of a few lucky finds of abnormal richness in iso- 
lated districts and the subsequent squatting of men of the labouring class 
in and around those finds: With the exhaustion of those has come 
the decline of returns, but not the possibilities of the industry. It is easy 
to understand that with already little or no capital in the country to 
finance prospections, the little there was could not last long in the hands 
of, and was soon squandered away by, unscrupulous or incompetent pros- 
-pectors. Thea natural result of this has been the withdrawal of all local 
capital and credit from this class of work: so honest and regular pros- 
pection has practically come to astandstill. Placer workers are now 
tied to the immediate surroundings of the early finds, which inevitably 
must sooner or later be totally exhausted. 
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