Items of Interest May 27, 1916 Issue

Items of Interest

The National Geographic Society in a bulletin says: "If the United States and Denmark strike a bargain and the three islands which comprise the Danish West Indies are transferred to the former, the sale will mark the culmination of a bit of bartering which began nearly fifty years ago, when the American Government offered $7,500,000 for the 138 square miles of territory in the Antilles. The sale was not concluded because the United States Senate failed to ratify the treaty. Fourteen years ago negotiations were renewed and a price of $5,000,000 was agreed upon, but this time the Danish Parliament refused to sanction the sale.

"These three islands of the Virgin group—St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John—were discovered by Columbus in 1493. Spanish, British, French, Dutch, and Danish flags have floated over one or all of the islands at various times. St. Croix, lying sixty-five miles southeast of Porto Rico, has an area of eighty-four square miles, and is the most prosperous of the group. St. Thomas, which lies only forty miles east of Porto Rico, was at one time the chief distributing center of West Indian trade. The chief port, Charlotte Amalie, with a population of less than ten thousand, mainly negroes, is still an important coaling station for steamers in the West Indian trade. With a depth of from twenty-seven to thirty-six feet of water, the roadstead can accommodate the largest merchant ships which sail these seas. St. John, the least important of the islands, lying four miles to the east of St. Thomas, has an area of twenty-one square miles. It is scarcely more than a ten-mile mountain ridge with but one distinguishing feature, Coral Bay, the best harbor of refuge in the Antilles."

A well-known landscape architect, to whom the chairman of the conservation department of the General Federation of Women's Clubs referred the question of a planting scheme for the Lincoln Highway, says: "In a general way I believe that the highway should be broad, not a mere insignificant roadway, but one that would exemplify the character and the greatness of Lincoln. I figure on a 150-foot road, including the planting spaces, leaving the highway itself 60 feet wide. This in time would permit a trail for pedestrians where cities are closer together, or perhaps a bridle path. The planting scheme should be so devised that it would represent the best trees and shrubs and native flowers of each state. Architecture should be subservient to the landscape and built out of native material,—everything simple and friendly.

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