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Jetty and thence up Edward street (and not 
up St. Vincent street) and the other passing 
up Henry street (instead of Frederick and 
Charlotte streets). I have no time now to 
dwell more on this point (which is rather 
outside of my subject) beyond merely calling 
attention to it. The line of the railway as 
far as the Government quarry is laid upon 
the land reclaimed from the Gulf forty or 
fifty years ago. Beyond this it passes over 
the northern part of the great Caroni swamp 
This swamp gives rise to much malaria and 
renders unhealthy all the country within 
its influence, so that it may well he doubted 
whether it would have been to the public 
interest to have given encouragement lo the 
running of a tramway along the Eastern 
main road whose course is at a 
short distance north of the swamp. It seems 
to me that much more has yet to be 
discovered and made known on the 
subject of malaria and the mode of origin 
of the fevers produce thereby. I have 
alluded to the question in treating of 
Gaspari in my paper on the Gulf of Paria 
(Proc VI. 1894, page 109). The agency of 
mosquitos in spreading malarial disease was 
discussed by us so long ago as 1865 and in 
my paper on the cultivation of Scientific 
knowledge, read in 1867, 1 referred to some 
investigations upon the subject of the action 
of swamps upon the production of malarial 
fever. Our experience of a month's resi¬ 
dence at Gaspari in 1891 does not bear out 
the mosquito theory fully. Every one of us. 
including a lady who never before or since 
had malarial fever, was seized with it tho 
we had efficient nets. I have given my 
views on the subject in the paper before 
quoted. The most characteristic vegetation 
of the salt swamps is the mangiove which 
keeps its footing so far as the slightest 
influence of the tide is felt. Mangroves 
grow only between tidemarks from the 
highest high-water to the lowest low-water 
and will not live beyond these limits 
whether above or below. The line of de¬ 
marcation of the salt swamp is very, pro¬ 
nounced and wherever the fresh water has 
undisputed sway, rushes take the place of 
mangroves. The remains of the abortive 
attempts to grow coconut palms in this 
swamp have almost entirely disappeared. 
It has been a very favourite opinion that 
coconut palms will grow in salt water. 
But as a matter of fact they will not grow 
in swamps or anywhere where their 
roots are not thoroughly drained. They 
I’eadily tolerate salt water so long as this 
