Remarks on the Kaieteur Savannah. 233 
feet above sea-level ; and its maximum temperature in 
the hottest season of the year is 84 clegs. Frht, while 
the minimum, which is experienced beween 5 and 6 o'clock 
a.m., at the same season is 64 degs. Frht., fluctuating 
however much more than the day temperature. The 
current of air blows up the valley, and during the night 
and early morning brings a cloud of mist up over the top 
of the Kaieteur. The average rainfall is probably not 
less than 100 inches annually, and, in common with the 
rest of the country, the district is visited by alternate wet 
and dry seasons twice in the year, each of which affects 
very materially the aspect of the vegetation of the 
savannah while it lasts. 
My visit was made at the warmest season of the year, 
in September, and I arrived there during the last 
showers of the summer rainy season, and before any of 
the smaller herbaceous plants had withered and died, as 
they did later, under the influence of the autumn 
drought, quite changing by their absence the appearance 
of the ground where they grew. I made a complete 
collection of the vegetation in flower at the period, which, 
under the favorable conditions which the weather and 
the locality, with its bare sun-heated rocks, presented for 
preserving specimens, took a fortnight to gather and dry. 
The attention of the visitor is suddenly arrested on 
entering the savannah from the forest through which 
the path leads up from the landing at Tookooie, by the 
novel character and variety of the vegetation before him ; 
but more particularly and especially, at first sight, by 
the peculiar aspect which it presents in the abundant 
presence and predominance of a single species— a bro- 
