BRAZIL. 



BRITISH COLUMBIA. 



Brazil had a short crop in 1883. In part it 

 was also due to a more active speculative 

 movement in New York and Rio than in Hol- 

 land and Europe generally, in this staple article 

 of consumption. 



EXPORT COFFEE FROM RIO DURING THE TWELVEMONTH 

 ENDED JUNE 80. 



OF COFFEE FROM SANTOS. 



TOM. 



1877 41.104 



1878 68,078 



1879 68,979 



1880 68,786 



1881 80,414 



1882 104,006 



In 1882 there were fifty cotton-mills in op- 

 eration in Brazil, having 2,305 looms and 77,- 

 328 spindles, employing 3,082 operatives, and 

 having a capital invested of 8,632,000 milreis. 

 They produced 22,076,000 yards of goods. 



Cattle-raising. The southern portion of the 

 province of Rio Grande do Sul is the best suit- 

 ed for stock-raising. Land in this locality is 

 difficult to obtain, it being generally heredita- 

 rily transmitted. Should it, however, come 

 upon the market, the owners of adjoining prop- 

 erty will make almost any sacrifice to obtain 

 it rather than have a stranger settle in the 

 neighborhood. Land is worth from $10 to $20 

 for each braca of frontage by 2,000 bracas 

 deep (a braca is 7 feet 2 inches). Stock-cat- 

 tle are worth, one with the other, $5 to $6 ; 

 for butchery they bring from $2.50 to $13. 

 They are generally sold at the breeding-grounds, 

 as the means of transportation are of the most 

 primitive kind and the cost large. The slaugh- 

 ter last year amounted to 260,000 head, against 

 275,000 the year before. 



Rio Grande's Hide-Shipments to New York. The 

 following tables show the proportion of import 

 of hides and kips into New York from Rio 

 Grande, as compared with other sources of 



RECEIPTS OF HIDES AND KIPS IN NEW YORK FROM JAN 

 UARY 1ST TO DECEMBER 31 ST. 



Brazilian Woods. Some investigations by M. 

 Thanneur show that Brazil is rich in woods 

 for engineering purposes. The " yandubay " is 

 exceedingly hard and durable; the "couru- 

 pay " is also very hard and rich in tannin ; the 

 " quebracho " is, however, more interesting 

 than any, and grows abundantly in the forests 

 of Brazil and La Plata. It resembles oak in 

 the trunk and is used for rail way- sleepers, 

 telegraph-poles, piles, and so on. It is heavier 

 than water, its specific gravity varying be- 

 tween 1-203 and 1-333. The color at first is 

 reddish, like mahogany, but grows darker with 

 time. Being rich in tannin, it is employed for 

 tanning leather in Brazil, and recently has 

 been introduced for that purpose into France. 

 A mixture of one third of " quebracho " and 

 two thirds of ordinary tan gives good re- 

 sults. 



Diamond-Mining. The discovery of the first 

 deposits of gold in the province of Minas-Geraes, 

 the most productive in Brazil, led to the search 

 for diamonds as early as the close of the sev- 

 enteenth century, the first being found at Ser- 

 ro. The fever spread, and moving northward 

 into virgin country founded the village of 

 Tijuco, the Diamantina of to-day, the center of 

 diamond-mining in Brazil. M. A. de Bovet, 

 professor at the School of Mines of Ouro- 

 Preto, Brazil, has recently, in the " Annales 

 des Mines," Paris, published an exhaustive ac- 

 count of a visit to that section. Diamonds are 

 found in the provinces of Minas-Geraes, Ba- 

 hia, Parana, Matto-Grosso, and Goyaz. In 

 Minas they are mined at Diamantina, Grao 

 Mogol, Bagagem, Conceicao, Cocaes, and other 

 points, the first named, however, being the 

 most important. Diamonds are found in a 

 rounded gravel, having peculiar characteris- 

 tics, which is called by the miners u cascalho." 

 It is a mass of small pebbles, chiefly quartz, 

 mixed with very little clay. If examined with 

 care it will be found to contain a large num- 

 ber of minerals, many of which are present in 

 the cascalho from all the districts. 



BRIDGES. See ENGINEERING. 



BRITISH COLUMBIA. This, the most western 

 province of Canada, extends from the United 

 States on the south to the Northwest Terri- 

 tories on the north, or from the forty-ninth to 

 the sixtieth parallel of latitude, and from the 

 Pacific ocean on the west to the main ridge of 

 the Rocky mountains, as far north as parallel 

 54, and thence to the sixtieth parallel along 

 meridian 120 W. on the east. 



Area and Population. British Columbia is in 

 its infancy. With a territory of 341,000 square 

 miles, it had in 1881 a population of only 49,- 

 459, of whom 4,350 were Chinese, and 25,661 

 Indians. Victoria, the. capital, is on the south- 

 ern end of Vancouver island, on the straits of 

 Juan de Fuca. Its population is 6,000. There 

 are no other towns of note. The chief villages 

 are: Esquimalt, near Victoria; Nanaimo, on 

 the Gulf of Georgia; New Westminster and 

 Port Moody, near the mouth of the Eraser; 



