^ The Journal of the Royal 
the standard gauge, which is now in universal use 
throughout Great Britain, as well as the United States 
of America and many other foreign countries. 
The Demerara Railway Company was established in 
1846, the East Coast line opened as far as Plaisance in 
1848, and extended to Belfield and Mahaica in 1854 
and 1864. Here all railway enterprise in the colony 
seems to have stopped until the last decade, when the 
East Coast railway was extended to Rosignol on the left 
bank of the Berbice River, a new railway constructed 
on the West Coast from Vreed-en-Hoop to Greenwich 
Park, and a narrow-gauge light railway from Wismar to 
Rockstone, forming a sort of portage between the 
Demerara and Essequebo Rivers, constructed — largely 
through the energy and perseverance of Mr. Fred. 
White, General Manager of Sprostons, Limited, — as a 
ready means of getting over the difficulty of dangerous 
falls and rapids in the Essequebo River on the passage 
between Bartica and the Potaro gold fields. In this 
way it certainly has served, and is still ser\dng, a useful 
end, although at the expense of well nigh ruining the 
town of Bartica, which was designed by its natural 
geographical position, to be the ''jumping otf ground,'* 
so to speak, for the Essequebo, Mazaruni and Cuyuni 
districts. 
The Demerara-Essequebo Railway must, however, 
rest content with its more or less evanescent life of 
usefulness as an aid in getting to the Potaro district, 
pending the construction of the great Central Trunk 
Line from Bartica ; as it seems to me like the bolstering 
up of a bad case to attempt to make it a sort of cross- 
country route to the Mazaruni diamond fields through the 
Potaro and Couriebrong rivers with a portage of some 
