130 THE AXGLO-VENEZUELAX BOUXDARY DISPUTE 



indirect. The bitterness over the Alsace-Lorraine houndary is strik- 

 ingl}' in evidence on the continent today. The boundary line be- 

 tween Massachusetts and New Hampshire, survej'ed and marked in 

 1741, has, after a lapse of about 150 years, only recently been ac- 

 cepted. The Alaskan boundar}', estal)lished in 182-5, still drags on, un- 

 surveyed and unmarked, a source of growing irritation and bitterness. 



The Disputed Tract. — The tract in dispute comprised an area of 

 about 50,000 square miles. England, with an area of 51.000 square 

 7niles, and New York, with an area of 49,000 square miles, is about 

 Cfjual in extent to the territory' in dispute. 



The ti'act is bounded on the east by the PZssequibo, on the north 

 ]jy the Atlantic and lower Orinoco, on the west 1)}' a low, flat water- 

 shed separating it from the Caroni, an affluent of the lower Orinoco, 

 and on the south by a mountainous district forming the watershed 

 which separates the streams flowing northward to the Atlantic from 

 those flowing southward to the Amazon. It is included between the 

 4th and 10th parallels of north latitude and between the 58th and 

 G4th degrees of west longitude. It may be broadly characterized as 

 a low, bench country, l)uried for the most ))art beneath a tropical 

 forest of marvelous density and l)eauty. Lying near the heart of 

 the torrid zone, with the sun passing da}' after day forever through 

 or near the zenith, and through two rainy seasons of each year fur- 

 nished for weeks together with downpours of warm rain that suggest 

 a deluge, we have the conditions of nature's own hot-house. From 

 these two conditions of excessive heat and excessive moisture comes 

 the forest covering, which in density, l^eauty, and variety travelers 

 agree in describing by the word indescribable. Beyond the forest tracts 

 there are, in the interior, unforested districts called savannas, which, 

 according to character of soil and altitude, are either swampy, hard 

 and grass-covered, or partially desert. Tlie culminating ])oint of the 

 region is Mount Roraima, about 220 miles from Demerara, on the 

 coast, near latitude 4° and longitude 61°. This mountain is a sand- 

 stone mesa whose almost inaccessible flat top is 8,600 feet above the 

 sea-level. Its walls are evervwhere cliff's more than half a mile high. 

 From this natural rock fortress the countr}^ gently slopes away and 

 then drops in cliffs or benches, so far as we know. In this benched 

 country are deep canyons, with numerous waterfalls — one the Kai- 

 eteur fall, on the Potaro, being 900 feet high. Pictures of Mount 

 Roraima and Kaieteur Fall ma}' be seen on the current issue of 

 British Guiana ])ostage stamps. 



