Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/239

 BRAZIL WOOD BRAZOS or sampfen wood, of the C, sapan ; and the Kicaragua or peach wood, also from a species of casalpinia. It is said that the name was applied to the wood (of which there are species Brazil Wood Leaves, Flower, and Fruit in the East Indies) long before the discovery of America, and that the great territory in South America was named Brazil in conse- quence of the abundance of the cassalpinia trees. So valuable were these considered that the wood was monopolized by the crown, and called pao da rainha, queen's wood. The tree grows to a large size, is crooked and knotty, and bears fragrant red flowers and small leaves. The wood is heavy and hard, takes a fine polish, and sinks in water. When first cut it is pale, but the red color deepens on exposure. The heaviest qual- ities are preferred. By boiling Brazil wood, reduced to powder, in water, the wood becomes black, while the water receives the red coloring principle, which is a crystallizable substance, named braziline. Long-continued boiling ex- tracts it all ; but a deeper red is imparted to alcohol or ammonia. The dye is improved by standing a few weeks, even if it ferments. At the best, however, it is not permanent; the colors are fixed only by a preparation of the articles to be dyed, which consists in impreg- nating them with suitable mordants, as alum and tartrate of potash. Acids and alkalies affect differently the shades of color of the dye ; the former making it more yellow and perma- nent, and the latter deepening the hue to pur- ple and violet shades. Brazil wood has been somewhat superseded by a dyewood of superior quality called camwood, supposed to be the product of the laphw nitida, which grows in Africa, and is obtained at Sierra Leone. It was formerly supposed that there were some medi- cinal properties in Brazil wood ; it was observed to have a sweet taste, and to stain the saliva red, and it was made an ingredient in some prescriptions. It is now used in pharmacy only to color tinctures. Red ink is prepared from it by boiling the wood in water, and adding a little gum and alum ; it is also used to make a lake-red paint. Paper saturated with it is used in chemical analyses as a test for sulphurous acid, by which it is bleached ; also for fluorine, which turns it yellow. BRAZING, the uniting of two pieces of metal, as of brass or copper, or one piece of each, by hard solder. Hard solder is distinguished from soft by being made of metals that require a higher temperature to melt them ; but all sol- ders should melt more easily than the metals they unite; and to give the maximum of strength, they should have about the same hardness and malleability as these metals. For brass, copper, iron, German silver, &c., the solder used is an alloy of zinc and copper in equal parts, or for a harder mixture, two parts of zinc to three of copper. The two surfaces to be united are made perfectly clean and bright, then brought together and secured with wire or otherwise in their place, and covered around their edges with the granulated solder, mixed with pounded borax and wet with water. The parts are then heated; the borax melts, and runs over the bright surfaces, protecting them from oxidation; and as the heat increases it fluxes the solder, and this suddenly flushes, or runs through the joints, uniting with the two surfaces, and making with them one piece, as the parts cool and the solder sets. The pieces are then dressed with the file. It is sometimes convenient to cover the joints and the solder with a clay lute before heating ; this is done in soldering iron, to prevent a scale of iron forming on the surface. The borax may be first melted and run into glass of borax, or allowed to froth up upon the joints. BRAZORIA, a S. E. county of Texas, bordering on the gulf of Mexico ; area, 1,260 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 7,527, of whom 5,736 were colored. It is watered by the Brazos and San Bernard rivers, which are navigable, and by numerous smaller streams which flow into the gulf. The Houston Tap and Brazoria railroad terminates at Columbia in this county. The manufacture of extract of beef is extensively carried on. The surface is level, one half covered with valuable oak forests, and the rest prairie. The soil is red, deep, and very productive. The chief productions in 1870 were 207,881 bushels of corn, 2,988 bales of cotton, 4,740 Ibs. of wool, 1,423 hhds. of sugar, and 92,450 gallons of molasses. There were 2,775 horses, 1,776 mules and asses, 2,207 milch cows, 42,770 other cattle, 1,856 sheep, and 7,437 swine. Capital, Brazoria, on the Brazos, 48 m. S. of Houston. BRAZOS, a river which rises in the N. W. part of Texas, in Bexar district, flows first E., then S. S. E. across the state, and falls into the gulf of Mexico, in Brazoria county, about 40 m. S. W. of Galveston. The distance from its source to its month is nearly 500 m., which i< increased by the bends of the river to about 900 m. During the rainy season, from Febru- ary to May, it is navigable by steamboats about 300 m. to Washington, and at all times 40 m. to Columbia.