Lot Essay
Two views taken on the Purini river on the British Government's geological survey of British Guiana (part of the geological survey of certain of the West Indian possessions) undertaken by Sawkins and Barrington Brown in 1867. The survey lasted several years and the results were published in the Proceedings of the Geological Society on 7 June 1871 (vol.27, pp.419-34). After giving his paper Sawkins 'entered into a few details connected with the chief points in his paper, dwelling especially upon the physical features of the country, in illustration of which several landscape drawings were exhibited.' The survey was one of several British expeditions to Guiana through the 19th century which mapped the land and culminated in an international tribunal ruling the territory belonged to Great Britain in 1899.