Vegetation is luxuriant. Large sections are covered with valuable forests, which furnish exhaustless supplies of timber, largely used for shipbuilding. Number sugar plantations, 120; coffee estates, 12. Sugar forms 92 per cent. of exports; latest reports give 111,156 hhds. Rum exported, 32,531 puncheons; rum issued for home consumption, 330,392 gals. Export of molasses, 17,084 casks; timber export, 464,436 cubic feet. Total imports, 1882, $10,498,160; exports, $16,043,155.
Government administered by a Governor appointed by British Crown, and a Court of Policy.
Georgetown the capital; pop., 36,562. Number of schools sanctioned by Board of Education, 177; Church of England, 81.
DUTCH GUIANA.Ghe-a´na.
Lies east of British Guiana, often called Surinam from the river of that name. Coast line, 220 miles. Dutch first visited the country about 1580; but the first settlement in Surinam was made by an Englishman, in 1630. Area, 46,060 square miles. Population, 68,255; 54,602 negroes.
Local government consists of a Governor and Colonial Assembly. Capital, Paramaribo; population, 27,416.
Mean annual temperature, 80.4°; coldest month mercury falls to 78°; warmest, mercury rises to 99°. Rainfall, 99 inches; at Paramaribo the average of eight years was 101 inches.
Large tracts of territory covered with primeval forests. Great staple of Guiana is sugar; average yearly export, about 10,645 tons. First cocoa sent to Amsterdam, 1733; the average yearly production is now more than 13,000 tons. Cotton and coffee rank next. Gold-mining is a growing industry. Latest reported value of exports, $1,151,070; imports, $1,316,355.
FRENCH GUIANA.Ghe-a´na.
East of Dutch Guiana. Area, 48,000 square miles. Population, 36,760. Coast line low and swampy. Large portion of the territory is covered with dense forests. Rainy season from November to June. Rainfall at Cayenne, 10 feet per year; heavier in the interior. Temperature: in summer, 86°; winter, mean, 79°, and seldom sinks so low as 70°. In this century there have been three earthquakes.