136 TlMEHRI. 
cultivation is impossible, and a great extent of fertile land would thus 
be set free for other purposes. Yet further, the labour required for 
such sugar plantations as these would be of a light and intermittent 
kind, exadtly suited to a semi-civilized people to whom severe and 
long-continued labour is never congenial. This combination of advan- 
tages appears to be so great, that it seems possible that the sugar of 
the world may in the future be produced from what would otherwise be 
almost waste ground ; and it is to be hoped that the experiment will 
soon be tried in some of our tropical colonies, more especially as an 
Indian palm, Phoenix sylvestris, also produces abundance of sugar, and 
might be tried in its native country. 
Gold in British Guiana. — The matter is now placed 
beyond dispute, that gold exists in paying quantities in 
British Guiana. The spasmodic efforts made to obtain 
it yielded in 1885, as far as official returns are concerned, 
939! ozs. ; in 1886, 6,51 8 ¥ 3 o ozs. ; and already in 1887, 
during the first six months, in spite of most unfavourable 
weather 4,991 ozs. 13 dwts. 17 grs. have been obtained 
— that is, that an amount nearly three-fourths of that 
obtained in the whole of the year 1886, has already been 
obtained in the first six months of 1 887. In 1 886, gold had 
already taken the fourth place among the exports of the 
colony — but when it is considered that sugar, rum and 
molasses, which took the first, second and third places 
respectively, are practically the results of one industry, it 
will be seen that really the gold industry ranks next to 
that of sugar. By some, as for instance by such a writer 
as PALGRAVE, the discovery of gold has been considered 
somewhat in the light of a curse to a country — a will-o'- 
the-wisp that leads to destru6lion ; but to an unbiassed 
