, 1894-05-19

The owner OF a very old DANISH map OF
Santa Cruz has been kind enough to lend it
to us for examination, and that examination
has been of so mach interest to us that we
have resolved to give our readers q brief
description of the map. Tt measures about 20
inches by 10 inches, has been engraved on a
copper plate, apparently, and haS,,been printed
on excellent paper. in the lower right hand
corner is a fancy sketch for holding the
title and description, which, translated. runs
thus: ga reliable map Of the island Of st.
CEix in America, as it IS + found to be by an
accurate survey, with the names of the
Quarters and the number of each estate under
which it is entered in the Register and has
been coded to each purchaser; lying in North
Latitude 1898. Drawn by j.. NJ. Beck.
In the left hand corner is a device for
containing the words Of the dedication,
which is to His Excellency Count ADAM
GoTLoB MoLTKE, Knight of theElephant &c. &c.
In the upper part of the map there are
ground plans Of the towns Of Christiansted
and Frederiksted, to which plans we shall re-
turn later. The map Of the island itself con-
tains, few names. Besides the names
Of the Quarters, are those Of some
points and bays around the shores.
Among them we notice "Sprat Hool,' which
doubtless gave name to the adjacent estate.
&Sprat Hall " as the name now is, is probably
q corruption, or perhaps an intentional all
%teration, of this original name again
"Wachthuus Pynt" has been corrupted to
waters Point" We find Salt Revir Bay
simply an error in spelling, presumably
Limtree Bay probably comes under the same
head. Buck Island is marked "Bocken Ey-
land a popularity of some interest. to
which we shall have occasion to refer at am
other time. Only two estates, both much
larger than any OF the others, have their
names entered, namely 'Prinsossen" and La
Grange, and these are witl0m numbers.
The high-roads are marked by dotted lines.
Those in the East End Of the island appear
TO have had much the same directions as at
present, but, both on the north and south sides
extended much farther up to the east, than now
which indeed they have done even within
living memory. The roads in the other d.
rection, however, were not much like the
fine system that we now have, and for a long
time have had, in that direction. The prin-
cipal road. after leaving ChristianSted, went
through Princesse and what is now st. John's,
and afterwards crossed the island, as it ftill
does. to about the position of the present
Centre Line road, but did not reach it till
near Adventure, continuing thence to the
shore south Of FredenIsted a branch
Of this road passed along the coast to
the north of Frederiksted. Another
ROAD lett ChIlStlanBleU towards Ile sOuJn
west, az now, but finally ran much nearer
to the shore than the present South Side road,
and then turned inland to the north west and
Joined the other main road near where the
Diamond School now stands. The most inter
esting thing about the map remains to be
mentioned, which is, that it shows by what
force, the sugar mills were worked, pointing
out by miniature sketches of cattle mills and
wind mills where these two kinds We're re-
spectivoly used. 1t is in Interesting to see how
at that time the cattle-mill. or horse mill
(Heste-M0lle), as it is called on the map, pre-
vailed. No less than "A of the properties
are marked as having cattle mills, while only
8 are marked as having wind mills. Even
the large estate La Grange had only a
cattle mill "P1incessen," however, was one
of the 8 advanced properties, and had its
windmill. It may be true that the West
Indies are slow; but it is plain that they do
not stand still. In st. Croix we began with
the cattle-mill from that we went ON to
the wind mill and from that again
TO the steam-mill. Nor are we satisfied
with this great advance, but we are
passing on to join with the steam mill
vacuum pans, triple effects and all the
elaborate machinery which is found necessary