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BORDEN, GAIL. 



tive to the Madeira & Mamor6 Railway enter- 

 prise, and the authorizing the Government to 

 negotiate a loan of 1,000,000. The Com- 

 mittee of Finance was earnest in its appeal to 

 the Government for the prompt liquidation of 

 the national debt, as indispensable to the finan- 

 cial welfare of the country. 



The illness of General Ballevian, the late 

 President of the republic, rendered it necessary 

 for him to withdraw from public affairs, leav- 

 ing Dr. Frias to occupy the presidential chair 

 ad interim. But the ministry, already very 

 unpopular, became ere long altogether insup- 

 portable by their arbitrary measures ; the 

 country, though quiet, that is to say not in ab- 

 solute warfare, was uneasy, and no confidence 

 was inspired by the Government. Such was 

 the position of affairs at the beginning of the 

 year. But a real calamity, the death of Ba- 

 llevian, which occurred on February 14th, 

 heightened the disordered state of the country. 

 Eevolutions raged for a time in the coast re- 

 gion, and the supreme power was disputed by 

 a number of unscrupulous chieftains whose 

 only right was the sword and the bayonet. 

 Dr. Frias still continues to hold the reins of 

 government. 



An industrial exhibition was inaugurated in 

 February, at Cochabamba. 



BORDEN, GAIL, a skillful inventor and phi- 

 lanthropist, born in Norwich, N. Y., in 1801 ; 

 died in Borden, near Columbus, Colorado Coun- 

 ty, Texas, January 11, 1874. His parents were 

 New-Englanders, and in December, 1814, they 

 followed the popular tide of emigration, and 

 removed westward to Govington, Ky., oppo- 

 site Cincinnati, and a year and a half later to 

 the vicinity of -Madison, in the then Territory 

 of Indiana. At the age of twenty-one, young 

 Borden, finding his health impaired, migrated 

 to the pine-district in Mississippi, where for a 

 time he was engaged in teaching. Here he was 

 appointed County Surveyor, and also Deputy 

 U. S. Surveyor. Having married, he removed 

 to Texas in 1829, his father and father-in-law, 

 with their families, preceding him thither. His 

 abilities soon brought him into prominence. In 

 1833 he was elected delegate to the conven- 

 tion held at San Felipe, to define the position 

 of the colonists, and to petition the Mexican 

 Government for separation from the State of 

 Coahuila. He was also appointed by General 

 Austin to superintend the official surveys, and 

 compiled the first topographical map of the 

 colony ; and, up to the time of the Mexican 

 invasion, had charge of the Land-Office of San 

 Felipe, under direction of Samuel M. Williams, 

 then Colonial Secretary. In 1835 he and his 

 brothervThomas H., now of Galveston, estab- 

 lished the Texas Telegraph at San Felipe, the 

 same paper which,- subsequently transferred to 

 Houston, was given up a year or two since. 

 The office was burned by Santa Anna in 1836, 

 but the paper, after the victory of San Jacinto, 

 was revived. This was the only newspaper 

 issued in Texas during the war which led to 



the separation of Texas from Mexico. The Re- 

 public of Texas being founded, Mr. Borden was 

 appointed by President Houston first collector 

 of the port of Galveston, which city, up to 

 1837, had not been laid out. Mr. Borden made 

 the first surveys of the city, prior to taking 

 charge of the customs, in June of that year. 

 lu 1839 he was appointed agent of the Galves- 

 ton City Company, a corporation holding sev- 

 eral thousand acres, on which the city is built. 

 He held this position for over twelve years. 

 Toward the close of this period his attention 

 was drawn to the need of more suitable food- 

 supplies for emigrants crossing the Plains, and, 

 experimenting with this end in view, he pro- 

 duced the "pemmican," which Dr. Kane made 

 use of in his polar expeditions. He next pro- 

 duced a "meat-biscuit," which was exhibited 

 at the London World's Fair, in 1851, and gained 

 for him the " Great Council Medal," and led to 

 his election as an honorary member of the 

 London Society of Arts, in 1852. He manu- 

 factured this "meat-biscuit" extensively in 

 Texas, with the view of supplying good and 

 portable food for emigrants crossing the plains ; 

 but, meeting with the opposition of army-con- 

 tractors, he lost heavily, and emerged penni- 

 less from the unequal contest he had main- 

 tained. Coming North, he turned his atten- 

 tion to the preservation of milk, and in 1853 

 claimed a patent for " producing concentrated 

 sweet milk by evaporation in vacua, the same 

 having no sugar or other foreign matter mixed 

 with it." Commissioner Mason was not con- 

 vinced that this process had any special mer- 

 its, contending that the same results might be 

 obtained by evaporating milk in the open air ; 

 and it was not till reenforced by scientific opin- 

 ions that Mr. Borden, in 1856, received a pat- 

 ent. The development of the invention was 

 now a source of fresh embarrassments. The 

 inventor had parted with all but three-eighths 

 of his interest in the patent, when, after two 

 unsuccessful attempts to establish works, the 

 New York Condensed Milk Company was 

 formed, and began business on an extensive 

 scale at Wassaic, Dutchess County, N. Y. This 

 was in 1860, soon after which the civil war 

 caused the product to become quickly and ex- 

 tensively known, as it became an essential arti- 

 cle in military and naval supplies. The busi- 

 ness of milk-condensing rapidly expanded, and 

 works were built at Brewster's Station on the 

 Harlem line, and at Elgin, forty -two miles from 

 Chicago, in both of which Mr. Borden owned 

 one-half. During the war, when the soldiers 

 needed meat-juices in a condensed form, Mr. 

 Borden resumed his experimental labors, and 

 produced an extract of beef of superior quality. 

 Finding, during late years, that its cost retard- 

 ed the sale of this article, he devoted much 

 time and money to establishing its manufact- 

 ure in Texas, where it could be made cheap- 

 ly and well. Mr. Borden also made excellent 

 preparations, in a condensed form, of tea, coffee, 

 and cocoa, prepared pemmican for use upon 



