RIO GRANDE 



5023 



RIOT 



and the headquarters of the ministry of public 

 industry and public works; the Cattete Palace, 

 the official residence of the President of the 

 republic; the Itamardty Palace, which is now 

 occupied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 

 and the Municipal Theater, which ranks with 

 the greatest theaters of Europe. Another in- 

 teresting feature of the city is the aerial trolley 

 which connects Sugar Loaf, a mountain peak at 

 the entrance of the bay, with the main part of 

 the city. In marked contrast to this triumph 

 of twentieth-century engineering construction is 

 the primitive public fountain, a long pipe with 

 twenty or thirty taps, where the poor of the 

 city may get free water. The Roman Catholic 

 religion is the faith of the majority of the in- 

 habitants. The city has several professional 

 and secondary schools, but elementary educa- 

 tion is somewhat neglected. 



About the year 1900 Rio de Janeiro began to 

 realize that its position as the shipping port 

 for the richest, most productive and most 

 thickly-settled region of Brazil depended on 

 extensive harbor improvements. These have 

 been completed at a cost of millions of dollars. 

 The entrance to the harbor is open to the larg- 

 est vessels, and inside there is room for all the 

 navies of the world. The water front is lined 

 with walls of solid masonry. Deep-water quays, 

 which are great piers of concrete and stone, 

 have been built, beside which the largest boats 

 can anchor. Both hydraulic and electric power 

 are available for loading and unloading the 

 trams, and railways connect the quays with the 

 shipping and warehouse districts. Besides the 

 enormous coffee output, the city's exports in- 

 clude sugar and tapioca, tobacco and cigars, 

 meat and hides from the great cattle plains of 

 the south and west, and cabinet woods from the 

 forests. 



In 1916 it was announced that, following the 

 successful example of the neighboring city of 

 Nictheroy, Rio de Janeiro would adopt the sin- 

 gle tax, thus becoming the largest city in the 

 world to have approved the Henry George 

 theories. See BRAZIL. 



Consult Bell's The Beautiful Rio de Janeiro; 

 the Pan-American Union's Municipal Organisa- 

 tions in South America. 



RIO GRANDE, re'o grahn'da, a river which 

 forms about half of the international boundary 

 between the United States and Mexico. 

 Rising in the Rockies of Southwestern Colo- 

 rado, it flows south through New Mexico, then 

 follows a southeasterly course between Texas 

 and Mexico, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico 



near the town of Brownsville, Tex. It has a 

 total length of 2,000 miles, but is of little value 

 for navigation. In its upper reaches there are 

 numerous gorges and cataracts, and for miles 

 along its middle course it flows through an arid 

 country. Large quantities of its waters are used 

 for irrigation purposes by the people of New 

 Mexico, so that its bed becomes a dry valley in 

 some sections during the hot weather. Small 

 boats navigate the river for 250 miles from the 

 mouth. The region along the Rio Grande was 

 the scene of many of the border disturbances 

 that caused the invasion of Mexico by United 

 States troops in 1916. See MEXICO, subtitle 

 Government and History. 



Consult Stevens* The Valley of the Rio Grande. 



RIO NEGRO, re'o na'gro, the main stream 

 of a river system flowing through the equato- 

 rial forest region of South America. By some 

 geographers the Guainia, rising in Southeastern 

 Colombia, is considered the headstream ; others 

 consider the headstream to be the Uaupes, 

 which rises in the Andes in Western Colombia. 

 The former flows in a northeasterly direction 

 to the boundary of Venezuela, then turns to 

 the southeast and makes its way into Brazil, 

 where the Uaupes joins it. From this point the 

 river flows in a general southeasterly direction, 

 emptying into the Amazon through an estuary 

 fifty miles aboye the Madeira River. Includ- 

 ing the Uaupes, the Rio Negro is 1,400 miles 

 in length. Long stretches of the upper river 

 are navigable, but the stream is of little value 

 commercially because it flows through a wild 

 and unsettled country. The thriving trading 

 city of Manaos is located on its banks ten 

 miles above its mouth, and the Rio Negro 

 from this point to the Amazon is an impor- 

 tant trade route for ocean vessels. 



RIOT, ri'ut. In criminal law a riot is an 

 offense against the public peace by three or 

 more persons who have banded themselves to- 

 gether without authority, with the intent and 

 purpose of assisting one another in threatening 

 violence or in violently opposing an individual 

 or a corporation that has worked a real or sup- 

 posed injury to those engaged in the riot. A 

 riot is characterised by such disturbance as to 

 jeopardize public safety or to cause public ter- 

 ror. At least three people must engage in the 

 offense to have it recognized as a riot. A simi- 

 lar offense committed by less than three people 

 is an affray. 



The statutes of different states and provinces 

 fix the penalty of those convicted of engaging 



