Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/115

Rh old military school building was largely torn down and then rebuilt, and one of the other buildings, which before was standing half-done and unused, has been completed and made into a fine permanent structure of stone. The land has been graded and cleared. A new sea-wall and boulevard have been built out to the exposition grounds. This is all clearly for the permanent advantage of the city, although the exposition itself, as a whole, will doubtless be a financial failure.

Brazil is an immense country. From the northern states with their vast forests—which most of us make the mistake of thinking cover the larger part of the country-—to the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catharina, it includes climates of many kinds. The visitor to this exposition will see rubber and wheat; sugarcane and corn; cotton, rice, manioc, coffee, mate, grapes, tobacco, alfalfa, sorghum. He will see most of the familiar vegetables and cereals of home, and next to them can examine the characteristic tropical woods from the forests of the Amazon. Amazonas and Para on the north have sent the products of the tropics; Minas Geraes has sent its famous cheeses, made from the milk of cows pastured on its great inland campos, as well as specimens of its gold and diamonds and precious minerals, and a fine model of its well-known Morro Velho mine. Santa Catharina on the south sends wheat and corn, wine, tobacco, cotton, coffee, dried beef, cheese, tinned butter, and the like—products of its temperate climate and of its cattle industry. It is probable that most Brazilians, as well as most foreigners, will be surprised at the variety of food-stuffs here exhibited, but it is certain that few visitors to this exposition will expect to see such evidence as is here given of the development of different industries in Brazil. Even the leading newspapers of Rio express surprise at the exhibits of cotton and woolen cloth; of footwear and of hats; of canned foods; of wines and beer; of dairy products, furniture, glassware, pottery and iron-work. The pride of Brazilians is especially appealed to by the exhibit of native foundry-work, of agricultural implements and of machinery of various kinds, for preparing rice, manioc, coffee and sugar-cane. By "special concession" on the part of the government, Germany and the United States have been permitted to exhibit machinery, some of it in operation. The former country shows agricultural implements and machinery for preparing rice, manioc, etc. From the United States there are exhibits by the United Shoe Machinery Co., the Continental Gin Co., of Birmingham, Ala., the Oliver Chilled Plow Co., of Indiana, and the Loomis Co., of Indiana. The Federal District (Rio de Janeiro) makes an effective showing with furniture and cabinet work, carriages and wagons, flour, glassware, laces, some excellent pottery and tiles, drugs and chemicals, bricks, wooden-ware, wire work, and a good collection of vegetables (fresh and dried) grown in the market