ElVEES OF GUIANA. 17 



The Coast Streams of Dutch Guiana. 



This estuary also receives the discharge of the River Nickerie from the east. 

 The Nickerie may be ttiken as a type of the coast streams of Dutch Guiana, 

 developing an irregular but continuous current, ^vhich winds sluggishly from east 

 to west through the low- lying alluvial plains. Some of the rivers rising farther 

 inland on the advanced terraces of the dividing range are intercepted on their 

 course to the Athmtic by these coast streams, whose volume they swell, while 

 deflecting them to the east or to the west, according to the abundance of their 

 discharge or the incline of the land. Thus the Upper Nickerie and the Coppe- 

 name after joining the coast stream continue their seaward course in opposite 

 directions, while between the two winds a channel whose current sets alternately 

 to the right or to the left according to the strength of the river descending from 

 the interior. 



East of the Coppename follow the Coesewijne and the Saramacca, which do 

 not communicate directly with the Coppename or its ramifying creeks, although 

 they fall into the same estuary. The lower course of the Saramacca, flowing from 

 east to west, cuts off a strip of c jastland, partly bush and partly swamp, which 

 has been completely isolated in the direction of the east as far as the Surinam 

 estuary by an old creek canalised in the seventeenth ceutur}'- by the famous 

 Governor Sommelsdyke, and still known as the Sommelsdyke Canal. 



East of the Surinam, whose bar is accessible at ebb tide to vessels drawing 16 

 feet of water, the bush and marshy coastlands present towards the sea a long low- 

 lying beach of scarcely perceptible curve, and tow^ards the interior an intricate 

 system of tortuous rivers and creeks with alternating currents. Here and there 

 these watercourses have been transformed to regular navigable canals, largely 

 utilised by the boats and canoes of planters and natives. Thus follow from west 

 to east between the Surinam and the Maroni on the French frontier, the Comme- 

 wijne, Cottica, Coermoeribo (Ccrmontibo), and the Wana or Wane Creek. 



The tendency of all the watercourses in this part of Guiana to set in a direc- 

 tion parallel with the coast, as well as the deposit of rich alluvial matter between 

 the watercourses themselves and the present shore -line, cannot be explained 

 merel}^ by the action of the periodical floods. On the contrary, the ocean plays the 

 chief part in the production of these phenomena. The liquid masses rolled down 

 by the Amazons and the Tocimtins do not precipitate all their sediment in the 

 great "fresh-water" estuary. Being intercepted by the marine current, the 

 fluvial waters are deflected along the shores of the Guianas as far as the Orinoco, 

 beyond which a portion penetrates through the Serpent's Moulh into the Gulf of 

 Paria . 



Thus the alluvial matter brought down by the great Brazilian rivers is dis- 

 tributed along the Guiana seaboard, and in this way beach after beach is succes- 

 sively added to the continental periphery. Most of these new formations become 

 merged in a continuous low-lying coastland, but their regular successive growth 

 is still shown by the intermediate creeks disposed parallel with the shore-line. 

 The fluvial waters of the interior, arrested by the opposing marine current, 



