Matthew Patay's
Note of the Month

 December 2006

 

Map and flag images provided by Graphic Maps

This month's featured note is from Guyana.
The denomination is 10 Dollars and the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money (SCWPM) Number is P-23f. 

The note is not dated but was issued in (1992). 

(front)

The banknote is dark brown on multicolored underprint.  The coat of arms of Guyana are at center and Kaieteur Falls are at right..

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The following information was obtained from:
Wikipedia the online Encyclopedia

Kaieteur Falls
 

Kaieteur Falls is a waterfall on the Potaro River in central Guyana. It is located in the Kaieteur National Park, a region that is also claimed by Venezuela. It is 226 meters (741 feet) when measured from its plunge over a sandstone cliff to the first break. It then flows over a series of steep cascades that, when included in the measurements, bring the total height to 251 meters (822 feet).

Kaieteur Falls is about five times higher than the more well known Niagara Falls, located on the border between Canada and the United States and about two times the height of the Victoria Falls located on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa. It is a single drop waterfall which is the 122nd tallest (single and multi-drop waterfall) in the world according to the World Waterfalls Database. The same web site lists it as 19th largest waterfall in terms of volume, and in their estimation, Kaieteur is the 26th most scenic waterfall in the world .

Its distinction lies in the unique combination of great height and large volume, averaging 663 cubic meters per second (23,400 cubic feet per second). Thus it is one of the most powerful waterfalls in the world, rivaling even the Jog Falls of India's Karnataka state during the monsoon season.

Up river from the falls, the Potaro Plateau stretches out to the distant escarpment of the Pakaraima Mountains. The Potaro river empties in to the Essequibo River which is one the longest and widest rivers in South America.

Discovery

On 24 April 1870, Charles Barrington Brown, one of two British geologists appointed government surveyors to the colony of British Guiana (Guyana), became the first European to see Kaieteur Falls. The other surveyor was James Sawkins. Brown and James Sawkins arrived in Georgetown in 1867 and did some of their mapping and preparation of geological reports together, some in separate expeditions, but Sawkins had taken a break from his work when Brown came upon Kaieteur. After completing their surveys of thousands of miles of interior rivers during the heady days of gold discoveries, the surveyors left British Guiana in 1871.

Brown’s book Canoe and Camp life in British Guiana was published in 1876. Two years later, in 1878, he published Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and its tributaries.

According to a Patamona Indian legend, Kaieteur Falls was named for Kai, a chief, or Toshao who acted to save his people by paddling over the falls in an act of self-sacrifice to Makonaima, the great spirit.

Tourism

Kaieteur Falls is a major tourist attraction in Guyana. Many people love the pristine rainforest that surrounds the falls. The falls is located in Kaieteur National Park and is in the centre of Guyana's rainforest. There are frequent flights between the falls' airstrip and Ogle Airport and Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Georgetown.

Ben Fogle's "Extreme Dreams" trek to the falls

In May 2006, Ben Fogle trekked to the falls with five English novice explorers for his "Extreme Dreams" series. The programme was aired in September 2006 on the BBC. Each programme was prefaced with the statement that Kaieteur is the highest single-drop waterfall in the world, as it is often falsely described by Guyanese people.

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(back)
Men mining bauxite are at left and an alumina processing plant is at right.

The following information was obtained from:
Library of Congress (U.S.) Website
(Searches are only maintained temporarily at this site.  Do a new search for this topic to refresh the information.)

Bauxite Mining in Guyana

Guyana was known to have a 350-million-ton bauxite reserve, one of the world's highest concentrations of the valuable mineral. But production of bauxite dipped sharply after the government nationalized the industry in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, bauxite production hovered around 1.5 million tons per year, or half the annual level of the 1960s and 1970s. The state-owned Guyana Mining Enterprise Limited (Guymine) suffered repeated losses as a result of inefficient management, declining world prices for bauxite, and prolonged strikes by workers. The losses drained the company's capital reserves and led to deterioration of plants and equipment. Guyana's single alumina plant, located in Linden, used to separate 300,000 tons per year of aluminum oxide from raw bauxite ore until the facility closed in 1982. From then on, Guyana was forced to export only unprocessed bauxite ore, foregoing the added revenues to be gained from refining the mineral.

In the 1970s, Guyana had the advantage of being the world's leading supplier of so-called calcined bauxite, a high grade of the mineral used for lining steel furnaces and other high-temperature applications. After 1981, however, China emerged as a major source of calcined bauxite, and Guyana became known as a less reliable supplier. By the end of the decade, China had displaced Guyana as the leading exporter of calcined bauxite, even though Guyana had the advantage of being closer to the major North American and European markets.

Bauxite mining was concentrated in northeast Guyana. The two largest mines were located at Linden, on the Demerara River directly south of Georgetown, and at Kwakwani on the Berbice River. There was little development of new mining areas during the period of state ownership. But in the late 1980s, the government began offering foreign companies the chance to rebuild and expand the bauxite industry.

The Reynolds Bauxite Company, formerly the owner of the mine at Kwakwani, was one of the first foreign firms allowed back into Guyana. It provided managerial assistance to Guymine beginning in 1985. In the late 1980s, Reynolds began investing an estimated US$25 million to open a bauxite mine at Aroaima on the Berbice River. An elaborate system of tugboats and barges was required to bring the bauxite 126 kilometers down the Berbice River and then 120 kilometers along the coast to Georgetown for transport to the United States. According to London's Economist Intelligence Unit, Reynolds awarded a ten-year transportation contract to GoliathKnight , an Anglo-Dutch company. The mine was expected to produce 1.5 million tons of bauxite in its first year of operation (July 1990-June 1991) and 2.6 million tons per year by 1995. Guymine was also negotiating to allow Venezuela's Venalum company to begin extracting 600,000 tons per year in the region around Kwakwani.

The government anticipated further development of the bauxite industry in the Linden area. A new mine near Linden, called the East Montgomery North Mine, was expected to open by 1994. It was to take the place of the three largely depleted pits in the area. The government sought significant foreign investment for the project; production was expected to reach 2 million tons per year in the 1990s. Norway's Norsk Hydro was discussing the possibility of reopening the alumina plant near Linden at a cost of about US$100 million. Furthermore, just as the Reynolds company was returning to the mines it had previously owned, Alcan was negotiating a return to bauxite production facilities in Linden.

Data as of January 1992

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The following information was obtained from:
Wikipedia the online Encyclopedia

Guyana
(a brief introduction)
(For the full article, please refer to the link above.)
 

Guyana is the only nation state of the Commonwealth of Nations on the mainland of South America. It is north of the Equator but in the tropics and has an Atlantic coast. Guyana is bordered to the east by Suriname, to the south and southwest by Brazil and to the west by Venezuela. It is the third smallest country on the mainland of South America and approximately the size of Great Britain. Guyana is the only South American country whose official language is English, and is one of only two remaining countries in the mainland Americas to drive on the left.

The official name of Guyana is the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Guyana is an Amerindian word meaning Land of Many Waters. The country can be characterized by its vast rain forests dissected by numerous rivers, creeks and waterfalls, notably Kaieteur Falls on the Potaro River. Guyana's tepuis are famous for being the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World. The country enjoys a friendly, multicultural society, high floral and faunal biodiversity, prize-winning rum, British Colonial architecture and Demerara sugar.

Though physically part of South America, culturally Guyana is Caribbean rather than Latin American and it is considered part of the West Indies. Other languages of Guyana include Creolese, Hindi, Wai-Wai, Arawak and Macushi.

Guyana is currently in a border dispute with Suriname, which claims the land east of the Corentyne River in southeastern Guyana. Venezuela claims the land west of the Essequibo River as part of Guayana Esequiba.

History of Guyana

At the time the first Europeans arrived in the area around 1500, Guyana was inhabited by Arawak and Carib tribes of Amerindians. Although Guyana was first sighted by Christopher Columbus during his third voyage, it was not settled by Europeans until the Dutch in 1616, who established three separate colonies; Essequibo (1616), Berbice (1627), and Demerara (1752). The British assumed control in the late 18th century and the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814. The three became a single British colony known as British Guiana in 1831.

Escaped slaves formed Maroon communities. The abolition of slavery in 1834 led to black settlement of urban areas and the importation of indentured laborers from Madeira (Portugal) (beginning in 1834), Germany (first in 1835), Ireland (1836), Scotland (1837), Malta (1839), China and India (beginning in 1838) to work on the sugar plantations. In 1889 Venezuela claimed the land up to the Essequibo. Ten years later an international tribunal ruled the land belonged to British Guiana; however, the dispute continues.

During the Second World War, the U.S. made an agreement that gave its airforce access to British airports in South America and brought it into the war against Germany. Soon after that it also went to war against the Japanese Empire following Pearl Harbor.

Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1966 and became a republic in 1970, remaining a member of the Commonwealth. The CIA and United States State Department along with the British government played a strong covert role in influencing who would politically control Guyana during this time.

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For more information about Guyana visit:

TThe CIA World Factbook

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