AGRICULtURAL AND COMMERCIAL SOCIETY. 101 
In British Guiana, transhipment from a steamer or 
launch lying alongside a wharf where cranes and other 
appliances are erected, would not cost more than 2d. 
per ton. I found the cost at Wismar where goods had 
to be transferred from steamer to railway cars without 
any appliances, at 3d. or 3Jd. a ton. 
At Rockstone, where there was no wharf, the cost 
was about 5d. a ton. There is one point in connection 
with transhipment which must not be lost sight of, and, 
that is, the very fact of the receipts per mile being too 
small to warrant an expenditure in a standard or even a 
narrow-gauge line shows that the traffic would be small 
and, therefore, the inconvenience (if any) of transhipment 
would not be worth much consideration. 
The question of opening up the hinterland by a 
main line connecting the Brazilian frontier to the coast, 
is, in my opinion, so very remote, that I will not follow 
the author of the paper, nor Mr. Dorman, as to route 
which a railway to the interior would take beyond 
merely stating that so far as one can judge at the 
present thne of future development, Mr. Dorman 's 
scheme is the proper one both from engineering and 
financial point of view. It is quite certain that outside 
capitalists will not be tempted by land concessions and 
mining rights only, however liberal they may be, and that 
nothing but a cash guarantee, which the colony is 
unable to afibrd, will secure the millions necessary for 
such a gigantic scheme. The realization of this scheme 
will depend to a great extent on the wealth of the 
diamond and gold-fields. Doubtless the results obtained 
so far are very encouraging, and although the colony 
may not aftbrd an extravagant expenditure; there is no 
