Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-09-07
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
ABOUT GUIANA

| OIlu
Any Lt:Ie group of QUESTIONABLE
addicts who encountered hat in
quiry probably would begin wonder
ing whether Muscle Shoals had been
sold, or whether somebody had pur.
chased the Woolworth building.
The National Geographic Society
recalls, in a bulletin apropos of the
plans being discussed in Holland to
investigate new capital in Dutch
Guiana, that New York nee was
I traded for Paramaribo.
Little Tropical City Traded FoI
New York
The real estate record of the tran
saction is tc be found in the Treaty
of Brede. by which, in 1867, the
Dutch gave New Amsterdam to Eng
land turned over pretty little Par
amarillo. Dutch Guiana's capital to
Holland.
"To put it mildly, continues the
bulletin, "Paramaribo today is not
known SO widely as it might be.
Neither is SURNAME, which is the
commoner name for Dutch Guiana;
o Demerara, which is locally used
to designate British Guiana.
And Guiana itself missed a
chance for fame through a typo
graphical error. The humble guinea
pig, nat We son, would have carried
its home lands name into popular
usage had not early writers confused
the habitat of the rodent with Afri-
can Guinea confusion which is
not altogether overcome to this
day.
Almost an Island
yet, Guiana, proper, is about a
third as large as the United States,
and occupies a conspicuous position
on the forehead of a continent of
American republics which Ameri-
cans of the United States have come
to knew sc well.
British Guiana, French Guiana
and Dutch Guiana are not all of
Guiana; there also is Venezuelan
Guiana and Brazilian Guiana. Thus
Greater Guiana comprises the re-
gion between the Orinoco and the
Amazon; in fact Guiana is a sort
of island because these rivers along
with the Rio Negro and Casiquaire
form it's boundary.
ut is an inexcusable error to class
Dutch Guiana with the West Indies
for, in respect to communication and
commerce., it is all but u off from
its South American neighbors. and
does business with Trinidad and
with Holland direct.
FLORIDA failed to reveal its
fountain Of youth to Ponce de Leon
but it's Miamis have yielded restor-
alive gifts to many thousands of
mid-wintcc pilgrims. Although the
Guianas failed Sir Walter Raleigh in
his ques. for a promised land of
gold and gems that region may yet
become an economic Ell Dorado by
the saner romance of modern devel-
opment.
"Cuid Plated" People
"For getting his lies believed the
fluent and facile Juan Martinez out
ranks Munchausen or Ananias. His
tales of Manoa, where the monu-
ments were marvels of lustrous gold,
where men were anointed with oil
and then sprinkled with pulveried
gold, captured the imagination of
many explorers even before Sir Wal
ter Raleigh penetrated the humid in
terror of Guiana in search of this Eel
Dorado. So generally is the term
now used in a f~igurative sense to
denote any fanciful rainbow's end
that it IS hard to realize how seri-
ously the tales of Martinez and les
ser liars, were credited. Indeed, Ell
Dorado's mythical court city. the
lake on which 1t was supposed to be
located and the estimated extent
of the country itself appeared on
maps until the serious scrutiny of
Humboldt exploded the fairy tale.
Dutch Guiana is about size of
Florida. The British first held It;
and the Dutch first held what now is
British Guiana. The westernmost
of the three foreign holdings, French
Guiana, is used, in part, as a penal
colony.
"Along the coast Dutch Guiana is
a strip Of transplanted Holland.
Back in ito forests Is a bit of Al
RIGA, inhabited by Bushmen, who
live much as do their Dark CONT
nent cousins The Africans were i'm
ported IN slave days, and chased
back to the forest Businesses when
the tax collector came around
Many of them found their tropical
environment there so home-like that
they eluded their The In
dams are mostly Arawaks.
Streets Shaded by Malhoganies
"Paramaribo has the immaculate
appearances Of Dutch city; 1t has one
natural extravaganza of which 1t Is
proud it's streets lined with mahog-
any shade trees. For the trees on
one block. spreading over neat
weather board houses, a lumber firm
once offered $4,000, and the resi-
dents declined to sell.
yet Paramaribo, like Dutch
Guiana, needed the money. Thrifty
and careful development of Surf
| names met with a series
of untoward circumstances. First
the cacao yielded bountiful crops
and then suffered a blight. Sugar
cane was introduced and attacked
by a disease. The indomitable col
onists turned to bananas ard an ep.
idemic overlook them. Yet in 1911
the little colony exported $~3,0O0,O0(
worth of goods. mostly sugar, GOLD
and Cacao. Mack in it's cumberland.
American firms now are obtaining
wood pulp A railroad pushes 81
miles into its forests. Despite earl!
disaster sugar is the chief crop"