Agricultural and Commercial Society. 85 
Blarney Railway, Cork and Muskerry Railway, 
Donoughmore Extension Railway, Bessbrook and Newry 
Railway, Blessington Railway, Castledere Railway, 
Cavan and Leitrini Railway, Clogher Valley Railw^ay, 
Portrush Railway, Sontli Clare Railway, West Clare 
Railway, Tralee and Dingle Railway, etc. ; while nearly 
if not all the Isle of Man Railways are narrow gauge. 
Now as to Bartica, which Mr. Hill states is the 
" natural jumping off line " for a trunk railway, I cannot 
agree with him. Take it that the trunk line starts from 
Bartica and is completed to its ultimate destination — • 
what is the result ? The bulk of the colony's traffic, 
including the South American mail and passenger traffic 
would be brought to Bartica, mail steamers and cargo 
boats run there and the result would be — first : great 
expense should be gone to in buoying and lighting the 
Essequebo river, stores, wharves, etc., should be built 
there at enormous expense, as the land immediately 
behind the shore is high and should be levelled ; then, 
assuming all this to be done, Bartica would become the 
New York and Georgetown the Washington of Britisli 
Guiana. Take it, however, in its present state. You 
leave Georgetown at 8.30 a.m. and reach Bartica the 
same evening, too late (especially on an ebb tide) to go 
further by daylight that evening. As a railway engineer 
with a personal knowledge of a good deal of the district 
to be traversed, I have no liesitation in saying that the 
proper and natural extension of railways in this colony 
is to continue the West Coast railway up the east side 
of the Essequebo River (with a station and steam ferry 
to Bartica, which would then be readied in two hours 
from Georgetown) to the falls, where it would cross to 
