THE VALLEY OF THE ORINOCO 
By T. H. Gignilliat 
Uniled States War Department 
In the map of the valleys of the Orinoco and Esequibo rivers, showing 
Venezuela and British Guiana (Plate V), the territorj' between the shaded 
area and the Corentyn river shows the extent of British Guiana as 
given in a map published by William Fadon, Geographer to His Majesty, 
January 1, 1820. This country, acquired by the English through con- 
quest and formally ceded to them by the Butch in 1814, then contained 
sqrne 20,000 square miles. 
The lighter portion of the shaded territory shows the first extension of 
British Guiana to the west after Fadon’s map of 1820. This expansion 
appears on a map published in London in 1840 by Robert H. Schomburgk, 
which included the light-shaded area above mentioned, about 40,000 
square miles. Schomburgk held an English commission to draw the 
boundary line, but it does not appear that Venezuela was represented in 
t he survey. The darker j)ortion of the shaded territoiy shown on Plate V 
represents the subsequent extension of British Guiana, as shown by a 
series of many recent publications. Since 1840, maps and other publica- 
tions have appeared, drawing line after line farther to the west, until 
some 49,000 sfpiare miles have been added to Schomburgk’s acquisition. 
In this way the area of British Guiana has increased from about 20,000 
square miles, as shown on the Fadon map of 1820, to 109,000 square miles, 
the area given in the Statesman’s Year-Book of 1895. 
Gold was discovered in a new section of this area, to the northwest, in 
1884, and an official Venezuelan report places the gold output of this sec- 
tion in 18!)0 at $1,000,000. But there is a larger interest at stake than all 
this territory, with all its gold. It is the control of the valley of the 
Orinoco, an area of about fl00,000 square miles, which comprises a very 
large i)ortion of South America north of the Amazon river. 
It is not generally known that the best entrance to the Orinoco river 
is within the original Schomburgk line. Dr !Munoz Tebar, the successor 
of Senor Jos6 Andrade as president of the state of Zulia, Venezuela, 
states, after a personal examination, that the best entrance to the Orinoco 
river is through the Guaima river and Mora passage to the Barium river, 
and thence to the Orinoco. Authorities aj^pear to agree that the other 
mouths of the Orinoco are shallow and obstructed by sand bars. Dr 
Tebar gives the depth of the Mora passage as over 60 feet, and would lead 
us to infer that there was no bar at the entrance of the Guaima. If this 
means that there is a clear channel over 60 feet from the sea through the 
iMora passage to the Orinoco river, it is a most important piece of infor- 
mation. The square black marks in this locality show the position of 
English trading stations, established between 1885 and 1887. 
Iti addition to the authorities above quoted, the “ commercial ” map of 
F. Bianconi, Paris, 1888, was used in compiling the map on Plate V. 
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