11 APRIL 1891, Page 2

Great Britain is not quite so fortunate as the United

States, where every year they discover a mountain of cinnabar, or an oil-well yielding half-a-million gallons a clay, or a silver-mine which seems inexhaustible,—but still, we have our windfalls too. The new silver-mines in Australia are said to be of unsurpassed richness ; Mr. Cecil Rhodes telegraphs about. new gold-reefs in Mashonaland about once a week ; Canada has just discovered a vast deposit of silicious sand, which should enable her to make bottles for the American con- tinent; Ceylon finds that her cocoa fetches double prices ; and now it is reported that diamond-mines have been dis- covered in British Guiana, which, according to the Lieu- tenant-Governor, will be "a new and unrivalled source of pro- sperity for the Colony." As no increase of supply appears to glut the desire for the bright little stones, that prophecy may prove correct. We hope it will, for of all the Colonies. British Guiana most sadly wanted a fillip, and the presence of capital sufficient to tempt the Colonists into public works. Curious if Raleigh's dream should come true at last, and a city of fabulous wealth arise in British Guiana! We hope the Colonists will have poetry enough in their composition to. name the capital of the new diamond-fields Manoa. Mr. Rhodes would, and he will be hardly able to keep his fingers out of that pie.