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BRAZIL

than copper, but can be easily worked. Ii is readily cast, rolled, stamped and worked in various other ways. Different varieties are made by varying the proportions of the two metals. Ordinary brass contains about seventy parts of copper and thirty of zinc. Yellow metal contains more zinc. It is rolled into sheets and used for sheathing ships. Tombac, prince's metal, mosaic gold, ' etc. are among the numerous varieties. By adding tin, brass is made stronger; while lead makes it harder, so that it can be more readily worked in the lathe. Brass can be cleaned with nitric acid.

Brassey, Lady Anne, wife of Lord Thomas and a great traveler, accompanying her husband in his tours in the yacht Sunbeam, was born in 1840, and died at sea, Sept. 14, 1887. She is the author of the delightful Voyage in the Sunbeam, published in 1878; of a cruise to Cyprus and Constantinople, described in Sunshine and Storm in the East; and of a later work, In the Trades, the Tropics and the Roaring Forties.                                        1

Brassey, Thomas, Lord, an English political economist and authority on seamanship, was born in 183Ŏ (the son of Thomas Brassey, the great contractor, whose Life was written by Sir Arthur Helps) and educated at Rugby and at Oxford. He entered English political life in 1865, and from 1880 to 1885 he was civil lord of the admiralty in Mr. Gladstone's administration and afterward secretary to the admiralty. Since 1895 he has been governor of Victoria, Australia. He is known as an enthusiastic yachtsman, interested in the British seamen, a writer on the British navy; and in 1893-95 was president of the Institute of Naval Architects. His chief writings are a treatise on Works and Wages; The Eastern Question; English Work and Foreign Wages; and The British Navy (in 5 volumes) •

Brattleboro, Vt., a town in Windham County, on the Connecticut River, about 60 miles north of Springfield, Mass., reached by the Central Vermont and the Boston and Maine Railroad. The town dates from the middle of the 18th century and has an interesting early history, while it occupies a picturesque site. Besides its civic buildings it has a public library and is the seat of the state asylum for the insane. Among its manufactures is the factory of the Estey parlor-organs; its other establishments are furniture and toy-making factories and those producing children's carriages, wagons and canning machinery. Maple-sugar is also a product of the industries of the town. copulation (census 1910), 7,54i.

Brazil, Ind., a city, the seat of Clay County, 5 7 miles west southwest of Indianapolis and about 20 miles east of Terre Haute, on the Wabash River. It is reached

by the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, the Evansville & Terre Haute system and other railroads. The city has a public library, and owns and operates its own water-works. Its industries, aided by the extensive deposits of block-coal, clay and shale of superior quality in the neighborhood, include sewer-pipe and other clay products, brick and tile works, the manufacture of pig iron, boilers, mining engines, steel rails and a variety of other machinery. Brazil dates from about the year 1856, and was incorporated as a city in 1878. Population,^ 910), 9,340.

Brazil, The United States oL The largest state of South America and the third largest political division of the western continent. It has the Atlantic on the east and northeast, with a coast line of 5,000 miles. Its land frontier of 10,000 miles confronts all the other South American states except Chile. Its breadth is 2,705 miles, its length 2,660 miles, and its area 3,218,991 square miles. It is larger than the United States, excepting Alaska. It occupies nearly one half of the South American continent.

Surface and Drainage. Lying like a vast triangle in the eastern angle of the continent, Brazil falls naturally into two sections. The eastern and southern portions, are high, containing two mountain ranges, with an enclosed elevated plateau. The northern and western section consists of plains and lowlands, including the valley of the Amazon.

Brazil's unique feature consists of the most remarkable system of water-ways on our planet. Three great river systems drain the country, the Amazon, the Plata and the San Francisco. The mighty Amazon alone, with its branches, drains fully one half of Brazil. The rainfall of the South American continent is heaviest in the interior on the head waters of the Amazon, so that this river is already a stream two miles wide and 150 feet deep where it first enters Brazilian territory, 2,300 miles from its mouth. With its tributaries it affords 27,000 miles of navigable water. The Madeira, the longest tributary, gives access to Bolivia. The Rio Negro, the largest northern affluent, connects with the Orinoco and thus furnishes navigation into Colombia and Venezuela. Another extensive and important system is the Paraguay and its branches, which terminate in the Plata. The San Francisco, which flows directly into the Atlantic, gives, with its tributaries, 4,400 miles of navigation.

Transportation. The great rivers above named give abundant access to the interior of the country, and this fact is the more important because large areas must otherwise remain inaccessible, being not adapted to the building of railways. Brazil has 14,-000 miles of railways and these have been