200 TiMEHRI. 



of Robert H. Schomburgk and George R. Bonyun, and 

 the following statement in the handwriting of the latter: — 



" These volumes of Sprengel were used by the traveller Schomburgk 

 during his expeditions in the interior of Guiana, and were given to me 

 on his departure for England, May 20th, 1844." 



The minutes of the Society also contained many 

 interesting autograph letters and documents, the whole 

 forming a set of records which will become more and 

 more valuable to the historical student as the events 

 pass from the memories of the living. Fifty years is not 

 a long time in the history of a country, yet during this 

 period a social revolution has taken place in British 

 Guiana, and nowhere perhaps is this more conspicuous 

 than in the proceedings of the Society. The stri6t 

 prohibition of political discussion was not a mere for- 

 mality in 1844 ; at that time the strained relations of the 

 Government and colonists were patent. It followed 

 therefore that when the Editor of the Guiana Times 

 called the Society a *' hotbed of politics" nothing less 

 than the expulsion of the offending member (Mr. Emery) 

 was possible. 



The general historical coIle6lion was of course larger 

 than that of the Society. A fine colle6lion of maps and 

 charts partly lent by the Government, the Hon. N. D. 

 Davis, and J. Rodway, shewed in chronological sequence 

 the progress of exploration and settlement. The earliest, 

 (without date, about 1630?) illustrating Raleigh's 

 voyages, showed the great Lake Parima and City of 

 Manoa, and a chart of the Atlantic Ocean and neigh- 

 bouring shores (about 1660) might have been used by 

 one of the Skippers of the Dutch West India Company. 

 A fair number of portraits of early Governors and other 

 celebrities and views of places in Georgetown were 



