New Britain herald., 1922-09-12
NEW YORK TRADED
 FOR PARAMARIB0
Real Estate Record Of Deed Found
 in Treaty of Breda

| '"'H'HBloil, U. C., sept. 12.-Wha
 is the biggest real estate transfer ever
 recorded in the New World?
 Any little group of questionnairt addicts who encountered that inquir,
 probably would begin wonderinf
 whether Muscle Shoals had been sold
 or whether somebody had purchased
 the Woolworth Building.
 The National Geographic Societ,
 recalls, in bulletin apropos of the
 plans being discussed in Holland tc Invest new capital in Dutch Guiana that New York once was traded fo, Paramaribo.
 Tropical City Traded for New York
 The real estate record of the trans action is to be found in the Treaty Of Breda, by which, in 1867, tine Dutch gave New Amsterdam to Eng land and Holland turned over pretty little Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana capital, to Holland.
 ITO 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; nor Demerara, which is locally used to designate British Guiana.
 And Guiana itself missed chance for fame through a typographical error. The humble guinea pig, a na- tive son. would have carried its home lands name into popular usage had not early writers confused the hab- fiat of the rodent with African Guinea-a confusion which is not al- together 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 continent of American republics which Americans Of the United States have come to know so 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- zion between the Orinoco and the Amazon; in fact Guiana is sort of island because these rivers along with the Rio Negro and Casiquaire, form it's boundary.
 "It is not an inexcusable error to class Dutch Guiana with the West h. dies for in respect to communication and commerce it is all but cut off from it's South American neighbors, and does business with Trinidad and with Holland direct.
 Florida failed to reveal it's foun- tain of youth to Ponce de Leon but its Miamis have yielded restorative gifts to many thousands of mid win ter pilgrims. Although the Guianas failed Sir Walter Raleigh in his quest for a promised land of gold and gems that region may yet become an economic Fl Dorado by the saner romance of modern development.
 "Gold-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. and where men were anointed with oil and then sprinkled with pulver- ized gold, captured the imaginations of many explorers even before Sir Walter Raleigh penetrated the hu- mid interior of Guiana in search of this Fl Dorado. So generally is the term now used in a fgurative sense to denote any fanciful rainbow's end that it is hard to realize how seri- ously the tales of Martinez and lesser liars, were credited. Indeed, Fl Do- rado's mythical court city, the lake on which it was supposed to be To- cated, and the estimated extent of the country itself appeared on maps un- til the serious scrutiny of Humboldt exploded the fairy tale.
 Dutch Guiana Is about the 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.
 a strip of transplanted Holland. Back in its forests is bit of Africa, in habited by Bushmen, who live mucn as do their dark continent cousins. The Africans were imported in slave days, and chased back to the forest fastnesses when the tax collector came around. Many of them found their tropical environment there so h one like that they eluded their own CTS. The Indians are mostly Ara walks.
 Streets Shaded by NIahoganies.
 "Paramaribo has the immaculate appearance of a Dutch city; it has one natural extravaganza of which 1t is proud, its streets lined with ma hogany shade trees. For the trees on one block, spreading over neat wealth er-board houses, lumber firm once offered S5o,000 and the residents de- clined to sell.
 "Yet Paramaribo, like Dutch Guiana, needed the money. Thrifty and careful development of Surf aame's resources met with series of circum stances First the ,acao yielded bountiful crops and hen suffered blight. Sugar-cane was introduced, and attacked by disease. The indomitable colonists lurned to bananas, and an epidemic overlook them Yet in 1911 the lit
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