Guiana

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Guiana

View to Devil's Island, Where Dreyfus and Papillon were Imprisoned, French Guiana, South America Photographic Print
Gillham, Ken
12 in. x 9 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed Mounted

Guiana has an area of more than four times that of all the other British colonies in the Caribbean region combined, but of its 90,000 square miles only some 198 are under cultivation. Except for a few scattered ranches on the savanas in the mountainous southwestern part of the colony, the cultivated lands lie along the coast and up the lower reaches of the principal rivers.

The coast region is an alluvial plain, 25 to 40 miles wide east of the mouth of the Essequibo River but somewhat narrower to the west. Part of this plain lies below high-water level and is protected from invasion by the sea by an elaborate system of sea defenses originally constructed during the Dutch occupation. Along its inner edge stretches a broad undulating belt of sandy clays surmounted in places by lines of narrow dunes and shell deposits, marking a former coast line.

The Essequibo River and the other main streams farther east flow northward, following a gentle slope down from their headwaters at elevations of about 1200 feet along the southern boundary with Brazil. West of the Essequibo, however, the greater part of the area is drained by generally west-to-east flowing tributaries of the Essequibo The Cuyuni and Mazaruni tributaries water a belt of hilly country about 120 miles wide which extends from within 50 miles of the coast to the steep scarp that fronts the Pakaraima Range. This is the gold and diamond-bearing section of the colony.

Three parallel mountain systems cross the colony from west to east. The northernmost range, the Pakaraima, which reaches an elevation of 8635 feet in the famous Mt. Roraima, at the junction of British Guiana, Venezuela, and Brazil, is mainly a succession of terraces and broad plateaus with sheer sandstone escarpments. East of the Essequibo River it is continued by low hills. The highest peaks of the central range, which scarcely exceed 1600 feet, lie at its western end. The broad heavily forested Akarai Mountains, which carry the southern boundary of the colony with Brazil, have maximum elevations of less than 1500 feet. Of special interest from the standpoint of possible future settlement are the broad savana areas at elevations of 300 to 700 feet above sea level that border and separate these ranges.

The rivers provide the only highways between the interior and the coast, but except for small craft they are not navigable for more than about 50 miles inland from the sea. Beyond, because of numerous rapids, only canoe navigation is possible. On the sheer sandstone escarpments of the Pakaraima Range are many waterfalls. The Kaieteur Fall, with a vertical drop of 741 feet, is recognized as the highest single-drop waterfall in the world.

Except for the cultivated coastal zone, a triangular savana on the coast between Georgetown and the mouth of the Courantyne River, and savanas in the southwest, the whole colony is heavily forested. Commercially, the most important forest products are greenheart, rubber, balata, and oils and fat substitutes derived from many varieties of nut trees and palms.

CLIMATE

In the coastal region the mean annual temperature is about 80.4° F., with the mean temperature for the warmest months (August, September, October) 82° F. and for the coolest months (January, February, March) 79° F. Temperatures of more than 89° F. are rare, even in the hottest months. There is considerable diurnal variation (12° to 14°): night temperatures average 72° to 74° F. and may on rare occasions fall as low as 70° F. during the coolest months.

Breezes from the sea, generally from the northeast or east, blow steadily during the day throughout most of the year and in the coolest months continuously night and day. There are two wet and two dry seasons -- a long wet season from the middle of April to the middle of August succeeded by a long dry season to the middle of November, and a shorter wet season from the middle of November to the end of January followed by a short dry season to the middle of April.

The average annual rainfall at Georgetown, in Demerara County, is 91.6 inches and in the coastal section of Berbice, the next county to the east, 75 inches. In the forested interior day temperatures are higher than on the coast and night temperatures noticeably lower, while the rainfall is much heavier -- as high as 130 to 140 inches annually. On the southwestern savanas, however, the rainfall is much lower than elsewhere (averaging 58.51 Inches at Dadawana on the Rupununi River) and there is only one rainy season -May to September.