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 BRAIDWOO D — BRAKES 339 music, especially that of Hungary. Not only were his of Belgium, in the province of Brabant, 12 miles S. of arrangements of Hungarian dances the first work by which Brussels by rail. Its industries are numerous, and include his name was known outside his native land, but his first the manufacture of woollen and cotton fabrics, dye-works, pianoforte quartet, op. 25 in Cf minor, incurred the wrath tan-yards, and breweries. In the district are the Waterloo of the critics of the time by its introduction of some Lion and Hougomont. Population (communal) (1880), characteristics of Hungarian music into the finale. His 6370; (1897), 7885. arrangement of a number of children’s traditional songs Brainerd, capital of Crow Wing county, Minnesota, was published without his name, and dedicated to the U.S.A., situated in the central part of the state, on Mischildren of Robert and Clara Schumann in the earliest sissippi river, at the junction of two branches of the years of his creative life; and among the last of his publi- Northern Pacific railway, at an altitude of 1209 feet. cations was a collection of forty-nine German Volkslieder, Population (1880), 1865; (1890), 5703; (1900), 7524. arranged with the utmost skill, taste, and simplicity. His Brakes.—(1) Hydraulic Military.—The hydraulic well-known admiration for the waltzes of Strauss is referred to in all the biographies, and in many passages of principle is almost universally adopted in brakes for conhis works the entrain that is characteristic of the Viennese trolling the recoil of guns. As the recoil energy may be dance-writers is present in a striking degree. Within very high, while for the purpose of facilitating the working so short a time of the completion of his work, it is impos- of the gun and keeping a high rate of fire the length of sible to determine the exact place in the hierarchy of recoil is kept short, the strains on the structures carrying music which Brahms will ultimately fill; but the more the gun are severe, and it is necessary to equalize the closely his music is studied, the more strongly will the strain through the recoil stroke to keep the stresses to a conviction grow that the last in the illustrious line minimum. of German composers is to be ranked with the greatest The hydraulic brake, or pump brake, used for this purpose consists of a cylinder with piston and piston rod, the liquid being of all. (j. a. F. M.) forced at high velocity through an orifice formed in the piston Braidwood, a city of Will county, Illinois, U.S.A., head. This arrangement is illustrated in the figure. The piston situated in the eastern part of the state, 58 miles S. of rod, a, of the hydraulic brake is firmly attached to the gun, 5, the lug, c, and on recoil of the gun in the direction of the Chicago, on the Chicago and Alton railway. Its principal by arrow, the liquid in the space, <7, is forced at constant velocity industry is the mining of coal. Population (1880), 5524 : (1890), 4641 ; (1900), 3279. Braila, a town in Rumania, on the left bank of the Danube, about 10 miles S. of Galatz, 100 miles from Sulina on the Black Sea, and 145 miles from Bucarest. As the grain trade of the Danube has been gradually usurped by Braila, so has the town grown and been improved. The main streets are paved, and there is a regular supply of filtered water. Large docks and dependencies identical to those at Galatz have been constructed, and extensive quays face the river bank. Braila is essentially commercial, and has an exchange and chamber of commerce; the Bank of Rumania is represented by a branch office. An electric tramway has been laid down, and, besides the lines running in the town, conveys passengers to Lacul Sarat (Salt Lake), whose iodine waters are held in much repute. Population (1900), 58,392, of whom 10,811 are Jews. The total imports in 1898 were 137,169 tons, value £1,812,490 ; total expoits, 621,906 tons, value £2,624,258. Of these the principal articles of import were :—Cotton yarn, £178,932 ; machinery, £161,440; jute cloth, £103,719; coal, £75,084; textiles, £115,000; heavy ironmongery, £71,422; sheet-iron, £70,344. The principal articles of export wereMaize, £769,646; barley and malt, £445,936; wheat, £397,745; dried vegetables, £273,295 ; flour, £178,144; oleaginous seeds, £160,230; oats, £153,483 ; rye, £123,144; millet, £41,028. Braila W'as visited in 1880 by 172 vessels of 194,919 tons; in 1890 by 474 vessels of 516,065 tons; and in 1899 by 121 vessels of 165,842 tons. Many events connected with the history of Wallachia took place in the neighbourhood of this city. In 1475 Stephen the Great, having dethroned the Voivode Radu, burned the town. In 1573 another Moldavian prince took the city by storm, and massacred the Turkish garrison. In the year 1659 it was again burned by the Wallachian prince Mircea, and for the time the Turks were expelled, but afterwards returned and possessed it almost without interruption from 1544 to 1828. In the latter year the Russians captured it after a long and sanguinary siege, when the Turks displayed courage and military virtue almost as extraordinary as they showed half a century later at the siege of Plevna. By the treaty of Adrianople, however, it was stipulated that the Wallachian lortresses on the Danube should be restored to the principality. Before carrying out this stipulation, the Grand Duke Michael razed the citadel of Braila, and in this ruinous condition it was handed over to the Wallachians. On the banks of Danube, a little above the city, are observable some remains of the piles of a bridge said to have been built by Darius. Braine I’Alleud (Flemish, Eigen-Brakel) a town

through the orifice, /. The area of this orifice is regulated by the valve key, (/, which is so shaped longitudinally that the orifice contracts as the recoil velocity falls off, and the resistance is in consequence approximately uniform throughout the stroke. When recoil ceases the gun is returned to firing position by the spring, k. The velocity of movement of the gun during recoil is not uniform, but varies from a maximum, shortly after recoil commences, to rest at the end of the stroke. As it is necessary, to obtain uniform resistance, that the velocity of flow should be preserved constant, a valve key to the cylinder is generally employed to produce the desired result by automatically closing the orifice as the speed falls off during recoil. (2) Electric.—The adoption of electricity for the purpose of operating cranes or lifts has led to the introduction of electrically-controlled frictional brakes. In the case of cranes for lifting weights, the object sought is to prevent the load from taking charge and lowering itself when the current is cut off from the motor; and the arrangement adopted usually consists of a frictional brake, normally applied by spring pressure, but held off by an electro-magnet actuated by the electric current for the motor, or by a shunt current, when the motor is in action. On electric elevators or lifts a somewhat similar arrangement is adopted. The brake is usually a strap passing round a drum carried on the motor shaft ; the strap is fixed at one end and applied by a spring at the other, which is connected also to the armature of a compound wound electro-magnet, which working against the spring releases the brake when the current passes. One winding of the magnet is in series with the motor, releasing the brake when the current is actuating the motor in hoisting, and the other is a shunt winding used for descending, and controlled by a centrifugal governor on the motor, which automatically cuts out the shunt circuit if the speed of descent becomes too great. An electric brake to control the speed of the cage when lowering is obtained also by use of the driving motor as a dynamo generating electricity, which is passed through an electrical resistance. In this case the weight of the cage is utilized to back-drive and rotate the motor connected up as a dynamo, the power absorbed by the motor in generating its