CHILI. 



Ill 



substance. From the unresolved residue, on 

 treatment with alkalies, two fatty acids were 

 obtained, one of which appeared to be cerotic 

 acid. The green filtrate from the resin-wax 

 yielded on distillation a green, oily residue. 

 From this a further quantity of ceryl alcohol 

 was isolated, and a larger proportion of the oily 

 ketone. The residue was a complex of inert 

 compounds, which yielded ketones on hydrol- 

 ysis. These ketones have the characteristic 

 odor of raw flax and flax goods, and from their 

 property of emulsifying with water, no doubt 

 exercise an important influence on the wet pro- 

 cesses of fine spinning of flax. The pectic 

 group of constituents associated with the cellu- 

 lose in the fiber proper, on oxidation with nitric 

 acid yielded mucine. The isolation of pure cel- 

 lulose from flax is a difficult operation. 



CHILI, a republic in South America. The 

 executive power is lodged in the hands of a 

 President, who is chosen for five years by an 

 electoral college, and is not re-eligible. The leg- 

 islative power is vested in the National Con- 

 gress, consisting of the Senate, the members of 

 which are elected for six years, and the Chamber 

 of Deputies, elected for three years in the pro- 

 portion of one Deputy to 30,000 of population, 

 under the law of Aug. 9, 1888. The members 

 of both houses are elected directly by the same 

 restricted suffrage. There is one Senator for 

 every three Deputies. The President of the re- 

 public, inaugurated on Sept. 18, 1886, is Jose 

 Manuel Balmaceda. 



Area and Population. The area is 293,970 

 square miles, including the territories in Pata- 

 gonia and Tierra del Fuego lying west of the 

 eastern ridge of the Andes, which were conceded 

 to Chili in the treaty made in 1881 with the 

 Argentine Republic, and the territories taken 

 from Bolivia and Peru in the last war. The 

 Peruvian province of Tacna is to remain in the 

 possession of Chili for ten years, at the end of 

 which period a popular vote of the inhabitants 

 will determine to which country it shall belong. 

 The population of the republic was computed on 

 Jan. 1, 1889, at 2,665,926, being 9 to the square 

 mile, on the basis of the census returns of 1885, 

 to which 15 per cent, is added in official esti- 

 mates on account of the defective enumeration, 

 making the population, including 50,000 Indians 

 not returned in the census, 3.115,815. Santiago, 

 the capital, has about 200,000 inhabitants, and 

 Valparaiso 105,000. Education is gratuitous, the 

 schools being supported by the state. There 

 were 1,074 students of law, mathematics, medi- 

 cine, and art in the University and National 

 Institute of Santiago and other superior schools ; 

 and, including the students in the lyceums of the 

 provincial capitals, the number was 4,877. There 

 were 950 public primary schools in 1887, with 

 an average attendance of 55,813, and a total in- 

 scription of 81.362, and 501 private schools with 

 26,912 pupils on their registers. In 1885 the 

 number of children of school age was 600,634. 

 The Chilian Government, anxious to have Brit- 

 ish and German colonists, made arrangements 

 to transport 25,000 persons gratuitously from 

 Europe during 1890. Valdivia, Arauco, and 

 Llanquihue are largely peopled by Germans. 



Commerce and Production. The total 

 value of the imports in 1888 was 60,718,000 



pesos or dollars (the silver peso, coined on the 

 basis of the five-franc piece, is equal to $0.77 in 

 gold), and of the exports 73,089,935 pesos. The 

 exports of nitre were valued at 33,866,196 pesos ; 

 of copper, 15,160,882 pesos; of silver, 7,733,864 

 pesos ; of guano, 1,535,035 pesos ; of iodine, 913,- 

 750 pesos ; of manufactures, 48,812 pesos ; of 

 agricultural products, 8,784,363 pesos. The 

 wheat exported was 5,500,000 bushels, valued at 

 4,548,729 pesos. The shares of the principal 

 countries in the trade of 1888 are shown in the 

 following table, values being given in pesos: 



The annual product of wheat is about 21,000,- 

 000 bushels ; of wine, 24,000,000 gallons ; of cop- 

 per, 40,000 tons; of silver, 335,000 pounds; of 

 gold, 1,000 pounds ; of coal, 10,000,000 tons ; of 

 nitrate, 800,000 tons. 



The nitrates are exported mainly to Germany 

 and France. They already constitute three 

 fifths of the total exports, and the industry is 

 growing. Copper mining has become a preca- 

 rious business since the collapse of the copper 

 syndicate and the development of a keen com- 

 petition between the producers of Europe and of 

 the United States. Gold mining, which flour- 

 ished under the Spaniards (three quarters of the 

 gold sent to Spain having for a long time come 

 from Chili), has recently been resumed with satis- 

 factory results. The gold mines at a certain 

 depth run into iron pyrites, from which only 40 

 per cent, of the gold could be extracted by the 



grimitive method formerly in use, and when 

 hili became the principal producer of copper in 

 the world they were nearly all abandoned for the 

 more profitable industry. Chili is said to have a 

 greater number of gold mines and deposits than 

 any other country. Mines are now worked in 

 twenty or more districts, scattered from Taltal 

 in the" north to Tome in the south, though only 

 three or four companies have been able to raise 

 capital enough to introduce new and more per- 

 fect means for extracting gold. The native 

 Chilians who own the properties, although un- 

 able to work them on a suitable scale, have been 

 not less reluctant to sell than foreign invest- 

 ors have been to buy, because the European 

 capitalists have insisted on having options run- 

 ning a year, and during that time the owner can 

 neither sell to other parties nor raise the price 

 if the mine develops unexpected riches. A 

 change in the mining laws has been made that 

 is advantageous to investors, who till 1889 were 

 compelled to keep at least four men at work in 

 order to maintain legal possession of a i%ine. 

 The law was the cause of much litigation, from 

 the fact of the poorer miners being compelled to 

 cede a share of their claims to persons whom 

 they called in to aid them, and, therefore, it has 

 been repealed. Under the new mining law the 

 payment of an annual license fee, varying ac- 

 cording to the nature of the property, secures a 



