St. Thomas is one of the Danish West Indian Islands, of which there are three belonging to Denmark, namely, St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. For the possession of the first named Mr. Seward, when Secretary of State, in 1866, offered the King of Denmark five million dollars in gold, which proposition was finally accepted, and it would have been a cheap purchase for us at that price; but after all detail had been duly agreed upon, the United States Congress refused to vote the necessary funds wherewith to pay for the title deed. So when Mr. Seward consummated the purchase of Alaska, for a little over seven million dollars, there were nearly enough of the small-fry politicians in Congress to defeat the bargain with Russia in the same manner. The income from the lease of two islands alone belonging to Alaska--St. George and St. Paul--has paid four and one half per cent. per annum upon the purchase money ever since the territory came into our possession. There is one gold mine on Douglas Island, Alaska, not to mention its other rich and inexhaustible products, for which a French syndicate has offered fourteen million dollars. We doubt if St. Thomas could be purchased from the Danes to-day for ten million dollars, while the estimated value of Alaska would be at least a hundred million or more, with its vast mineral wealth, its invaluable salmon fisheries, its inexhaustible forests of giant timber, and its abundance of seal, otter, and other rich furs. A penny-wise and pound-foolish Congress made a huge mistake in opposing Mr. Seward's purpose as regarded the purchase of St. Thomas. The strategic position of the island is quite sufficient to justify our government in wishing to possess it, for it is geographically the keystone of the West Indies. The principal object which Mr. Seward had in view was to secure a coaling and refitting station for our national ships in time of war, for which St. Thomas would actually be worth more than the island of Cuba. Opposite to it is the continent of Africa; equidistant are the eastern shores of North and South America; on one side is western Europe, on the other the route to India and the Pacific Ocean; in the rear are Central America, the West Indies, and Mexico, together with those great inland bodies of salt water, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. It requires no argument to show how important the possession of such an outpost might prove to this country.