" Timehri " and Development. 173 



one within easy reach of Manaos, the chief town of Aruazonas province and 

 the neighbourhood of the junction of the Ireng and Takutu rivers has 

 almost unanimously been fixed upon as best meeting the requirements 

 on both sides of the Guiana-Brazil frontier. 



The question of routes to this point at both ends opens up a field of 

 discussion and it is interesting to trace the gradual progress towards defi- 

 nite ideas. Topographical knowledge has throughout been meagre to a 

 degree. Tbe valleys of the great rivers and a mile or two on either side 

 of them, certain tracts like the Bartica-Caburi and the Potaro-Kon- 

 awaruk roads, the lines cut from Tumatumari to the Semang-Mazaruni 

 junction and the Karamang path afforded until recently the only data 

 on which an estimate of the nature of a line for railway construction 

 might be founded. These all lie within a small area of about 3,660 sq. 

 miles between the arms of the Mazaruni to the North and West and the 

 Potaro-Essequibo system South and East and could only affect at most 

 some 60 miles of the projected route for a trunk scheme, and some of 

 the branches which might be thrown out to tap mineralised areas. A 

 great stretch of unknown hills and valleys intervene between the end 

 of this partially known line and the objective of a boundary railway on 

 the banks of the Ireng River the course of which had been fixed by the 

 Boundary Commissioners as the dividing line between Brazil and Guiana. 

 Prominent points sighted from Yakontipu far to the West or Ayanganna 

 and fixed by triangulation include up till the present time all that is 

 accurately known of this region and, as a gentleman who has been 

 prominent in advocacy of railway expansion remarked to me, many sur- 

 prises may await one who with ideas formed on this data penetrates the 

 recesses which intervene. 



Routes. 



As already indicated, the question which first arose in regard to rail- 

 way development was in regard to a Demerara River or an all-Essequibo 

 route to the goldfields. In rather a different shape from that which is 

 moot to-day, there were the familiar alternatives with Georgetown and 

 Bartica as )ase from which to circumvent the catarac:s of the Essequibo 

 as a first objective, and there were enthusiastic supporters of each i - oute. 



Soon after the report of the Commission on the opening up of the 

 country was issued the chairman, Dr. Carrington, Attorney General at 

 thit time, who like his successor in office to-day was a vigorous advo- 

 cate of progress in railway building, availed himself of the presence in 

 th? colony of Mr. Robert Tennant, who had come to investigate quartz 

 mining prospects, and asked him to submit an opinion on the best way of 

 opening up the known gold districts then being worked. 



Mr. Tennant gave a detailed writ en report on the matter which was 

 published in April, 1893. In this he said that to assume that the Deni- 

 er ira on one hand and the Bartica route on the other were the only 

 alternatives was to i educe the broad question of Railway development to 

 narrower limits than the wealth of the goldfields justified. These 



