The international geography . fifty miles from its flatalluvial shores the sea is dis-coloured by the immense volumeof muddy water poured in by itsrivers. Hardly rising above highwater mark, the coast for abouttwenty miles inland was oncenothing more than a mangroveswamp in front and a sedgy morassbehind ; but this has been changedto a great extent through the in-genuity of the first possessors ofthe colony, the Dutch, who, imi-tating the dams and dykes oftheir mother country, succeeded in empoldering the greater part of thecoast, and in laying out a line of sugar and cotton plantations. Cotto
The international geography . fifty miles from its flatalluvial shores the sea is dis-coloured by the immense volumeof muddy water poured in by itsrivers. Hardly rising above highwater mark, the coast for abouttwenty miles inland was oncenothing more than a mangroveswamp in front and a sedgy morassbehind ; but this has been changedto a great extent through the in-genuity of the first possessors ofthe colony, the Dutch, who, imi-tating the dams and dykes oftheir mother country, succeeded in empoldering the greater part of thecoast, and in laying out a line of sugar and cotton plantations. Cottonhas, however, long been abandoned, and sugar has probably seen its bestdays ; nevertheless, this line of empoldered land, which rarely extendsbeyond five miles from the shore, is virtually the only portion of thecolony under cultivation and almost the only part inhabited. Behind thisdepth of alluvium come reefs of white quartz sand, the sea beaches ofsome former age, and beyond these again a rocky, hilly country covered 878. Fig. 427.—Sonic of the boundaries suggestedbetween British Guiana and Venezuela, British Guiana 879 with primeval forest, only in the far interior broken b} open savannas ona sandstone formation. The rocks belong to ancient igneous and sedi-mentary formations, consisting mainly of granite, quartz, and red andwhite clays, in which gold is found. Rivers and Mountains.—The longest of the rivers is the Essequebowhich rises in the extreme south almost on the equator, and, including itsnumerous windings, is over 600 miles long; the Corentyne is about thesame length, the Berbice 400 miles, and the Demerara 250. Other rivers arethe Barima, Waini, and Pomeroon, besides which there are the two greataffluents of the Essequebo, the Cuyuni and Masaruni as well as hundredsof smaller rivers generally called creeks. The Corentyne, Berbice,Demerara, and Barima are navigable for over a hundred miles from theirmouths, but the Essequebo, Cuyuni, and Masaruni are obstructe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectgeography, bookyear19
