customed to experiment only at an atmospheric pressure, a few pounds on the square inch, and at only a few hundred degrees removed from absolute cold. Under other conditions we had the temperatures of the suns and stars which might be measured by thousands of degrees; we had pressures in the center of the earth which might be measured by millions of atmospheres; and we had motions of masses of planetary matter which might be measured by hundreds of miles in a second. Without reaching these extreme limits, the study of explosives widened our range of experience, and as such it must lend some efficient aid to the advance of science. CHILI, an independent republic of South America. (For details relating to area, see Annual Cyclopædia" for 1884.) The population of Chili, according to the last census, taken on Nov. 26, 1885, is 2,524,476. Government. The President is Don Manuel Balmaceda, whose term of office will expire on Sept. 18, 1891. The Cabinet was composed in 1887 of the following ministers: Interior, Don Anibal Zañartu; Foreign Affairs, Don Miguel Lamunátegui; Justice. Don Pedro L. Cuadra; Treasurer, Don Agustin Edwards; War and Navy, Don Manuel García de la Fuente; and Public Works, Don Pedro Montt. The Chilian Minister to the United States is Don Domingo Gana. The Chilian Consul at New York is Don Justo R. de la Espriella; and the ConsulGeneral at San Francisco, Don Juan de la Cruz Cerda. The United States Minister to Chili is Hon. William R. Roberts. Army and Navy.-While the rank and file remained 5,541, the number of officers, toward the close of 1886, was reduced from 970 to 928, the National Guard being at the same time, for the three arms, fixed at 48,674 men. The Minister of the Navy, Aug. 20, 1886, reported that the navy consisted of two ironclads, one monitor, three corvettes, two gunboats, three cruisers, one steam transport, four escamparais, six pontoons, and nine torpedoboats, the armament of the fleet being 75 guns; the joint tonnage 17,080, with 4,550 horsepower, manned by 1,481 sailors. Adding the officers, engineers, and garrison, the number of men serving in the fleet aggregated 2,473. In September, 1887, this number was increased by decree to 2,800, to be raised if need be to 6,000. The number of cadets in the naval schools was fixed at 150, volunteers, after serving their time, to be entitled to 108,900 square metres of Government land, and the premiums to be paid them as follows; $200 to those enlisting for the first time; $250 to those re-enlisting; and $300 to those serving a third Valparaiso to Fiume, Austria, to study the construction of Whitehead torpedoes. The French firm of George Chautiers, naval architects, made proposals to the Government in September, 1887, to build a steel-clad of 6,000 tons, furnished with all the latest improvements of naval warfare. Finances. In spite of the costly war with Peru and Bolivia, the public debt amounted on Jan. 1, 1886, to but $83,653,737, being composed as follows: Foreign indebtedness, payable in gold, $33,733,500; home indebtedness, bearing from 3 to 9 per cent. interest, $23,232,321; paper money in circulation, $26,687,916. Total, $83,653,737. On Jan. 1, 1887, the foreign debt stood, $34,601,270; and the internal debt, $49,223,429. Total, $83,824,699. The total increase consequently was, $170,962, the home debt having decreased $686,808, and the foreign debt increased $867,770. Toward the close of 1886 the Chilian Government succeeded in converting into £6,200,000 44-per-cent. bonds, at 983; £852,100 1858 44-per-cent.; £1,244,800 1867 6-per-cent., and £3,696,800 1870, 1873, and 1875 5-percent. old outstanding bonds. The proceeds, while canceling the old bonds, left besides £315,000 for Peruvian bondholders. The report of the Chilian Minister of Finance, June 1, 1887, showed that in 1886 the amount of money received into the treasury was $65,764,588, which included the $14,652,331 surplus from 1885. The expenditure in 1886 was $49,413,775. War Claims. During 1887 negotiations continued between Chili and Germany with respect to fourteen claims presented by German subjects for losses suffered by them during the war in the Pacific. The Italian Government also holds heavy claims in behalf of Italians, and demands that at least 20 per cent. of the amount claimed shall be paid. The French Government, tired of the continuous disputes that have occurred in consequence of the French claims, has offered to accept a round sum of $1,000,000 in coin, which it would distribute among French neutral citizens who were sufferers by the war. Commerce.—The foreign-trade movement in Chili has been as follows: per in bars showed $1,237,745 decrease, and silver in bars, $202,187, all due to the decline in values, and reduced quantities shipped, so far as copper is concerned. Products of agriculture, of the mills, and stock farms showed the following items of increase: Wheat, $917,514; wool, $425,816; barley. $124,668; oats, $127,398; flour, $37,907. During the first nine months of 1887, Chilian copper exportation did not exceed 22,872 tons, against 30,212 tons during the corresponding period of 1886. The Chilian exportation of nitrate of soda has been as follows: In August, 1887, the Chilian Chambers passed a law exempting from import duties articles introduced for mining and other industrial purposes. Merchant Marine.-There were afloat under the Chilian flag, on May 1, 1886, 37 steamers, with a joint tonnage of 18,525; 7 ships, with 8,461 tons; 88. barks, with 44,343 tons; 5 brigs, with 1,514; 7 schooner-brigs, with 2,148; 11 schooners, with 1,182; and 18 sloops with 1,112; together, 173 vessels, with 77,285 tons, being an increase for the year of 2 steamers and 5 sailing-vessels. Railroads.-The Republic of Chili, which will soon be in intimate connection by transcontinental railways with the Argentine Republic, is rapidly developing its great resources. The geographical configuration of the country, long and narrow, with a great coast-line, and more than fifty seaports, makes it unusually independent of railroads as means of communication. But Chili was the first of the South American nations to introduce railroads and telegraphs, and while Brazil, Peru, and the Argentine Republic have a greater mileage, Chili, in proportion to population, still stands at the head, both in railways and telegraph lines. Of the latter she has 15,000 kilometres in operation; of railways, 2;500 in operation, and 3,000 more in process of construction. The Chilian Senate bas unanimously voted a subsidy to be used in completing the gap of 140 miles to connect the Chilian system with that of the Argentine Republic. The Chilian Government has caused surveys to be made with a view to the extension of the Palmilla and San Fernando Railroad to the coast. It was found that the extension would have to be 85 kilometres long, and would cost 3,000,000, It is probable that the work will be taken up in sections, the first and most practicable of which, from Palmilla to Alcones, is fully half of the entire proposed extension, estimated not to exceed in cost $750,000. In December, 1886, the Arauco Company was incorporated in London for the purpose of carrying out a concession granted by the Chilian Government in October, 1884, to build a railroad from Concepcion to Rios de Curanclahue, and undertake certain public works in the province of Arauco, and other portions of Chili. In 1887 tramways were laid in the principal streets of Concepcion. The new viaduct between Concepcion and Curanclahue, in course of construction, will be the third highest in the world. The Grace Contract.-The Chilian Government having taken umbrage at certain clauses of the Grace-Aranibar contract between Peru and her bondholders, the Peruvian Government abstained from carrying out the agreement. Chili based her objections on two of the principal clauses of that document. First, the implied assertion that she is responsible for half of the Peruvian foreign debt, as she has seized the property by which that obligation was guaranteed, whereas, by the treaty of peace she declared that she would hand over to the bondholders half of the net proceeds of the guano she might sell abroad, and the Peruvian debt was never alluded to. The second objection is based on the immigration of Europeans to Peru, proposed in the contract, and the large grants of land to be given to the Grace Company. Chili declared that this was nothing but handing over the independence of Peru to a foreign power, and that the Monroe doctrine, established by the United States, would forbid such concession. Telephones.Communication by telephone was opened during the summer between Santiago and Valparaiso. Electric Light. The city of Coquimbo adopted and received in 1887 the electric light for illuminating its thoroughfares. New Lazaretto.-The Chamber of Deputies passed a bill, early in 1887, creating a lazaretto and provisioning station of infected vessels at the Islands of Juan Fernandez. New Colony. During the latter part of 1885 a colony was founded by agricultural immigrants at Ercilla, in Araucania, and in less than a year the village had all the appearance of a civilized community, and the adjoining farms were in a prosperous condition. Cholera. The cholera invaded Chili by land from the Argentine Republic toward the close of 1886, the sanitary cordon having been broken despite the severest quarantine measures. It ravaged Chili till the summer, and up to May 21 there had been 899 cases at Valparaiso, of which 628 proved fatal; at Quillota, out of 1,959 attacked. 1,002 died. Mineral Resources.-The province of Coquimbo has become remarkable for the production and exportation of manganese. In 1885 the exportation reached 3,753 tons, and during the first half of 1886 it was 38,802 tons. Nearly the whole of this was shipped to England. A mine of good coal was discovered in the latter part of 1886, on the island of Chiloe, which has been bought and is worked by an English company. This discovery is the more important as Chili has so far been obliged to import coal from England and Australia. At Esmeralda a rich silver-mine was discovered toward the close of 1886, in addition to similar discoveries made in that locality three years previously. About $3,000,000 was taken out during the interval. A company was formed in New York in 1887, with a capital of $300,000, for the purpose of doing a general milling and smelting business in Chili. Important gold discoveries were made in 1886 at Condoriaco, in the province of Coquimbo. Industries. Chilian wines are so excellent that they begin to attract attention in France, prizes having been awarded them at the last exhibition in Bordeaux. The Argentine Republic is Chili's best market at present for her wines. Oysters.-Viscount V. R. de Solminhac, a Frenchman, has applied to the Government for a concession to plant oyster-beds along the Chilian coast. The export from Chili to France of the berries of the Chilian shrub Aristotelia Magin, of the Tiliacea, was begun in 1886. It is used in Chili for the purpose of coloring wines. Every portion of the plant is utilized; the leaves have medical qualities, the wood is used for cabinet-work, the bark for tying. On Nov. 1, 1887, an international exhibition was opened at the Agricultural Experimental Garden in Santiago, of machines adapted to separating flax from the fiber, stem, and leaves of the flax-plant, a prize of $1,000 being offered for the machine that should be decided by the jury of award to be the one best fitted for the work. It was resolved in the summer of 1887 to convert the large sugar-refinery of Julio Bernstein at Viña del Mar, near Valparaiso, into a stock company. As Chili has hitherto been dependent for the large amounts of refined sugar consumed in the country on importation from Europe and the United States, this industry has undoubtedly a promising future. Large quantities of wool are being bought in Peru and Bolivia, and new factories are being erected in Chili. The Government has given an order for 18,000 woolen blankets and 21,000 yards of woolen cloth to be used in supplying the police and the army. Education. The state devotes $3,000,000 a year to public instruction, which is free in all grades, and the country has 1,500 primary schools, which are attended by more than 100,000 children. CHINA, an empire in Eastern Asia. The Emperor is Hwangti, surnamed Kwang-seui, son of the Prince Ch'un, or Seventh Prince. He was born in 1871, succeeded to the throne by proclamation in 1875, and assumed the government of his dominions on attaining his majority Feb. 7, 1887; yet the Empress Regent still exercises, to a large extent, the royal prerogative. The Emperor's father, though precluded from holding any official post, has, for some years, been the leading statesman in China. The highest official body is the Neiko, consisting of four members, with two assistants from the Han-lin, who see that the acts of the ministry conform to the laws. Under the four ministers are the seven government boards, viz.: the Board of Civil Appointments; the Board of Revenue; the Board of Rites and Ceremonies; the Army Board; the Board of Public Works; the Tribunal of Criminal Jurisdiction; and the Admiralty Board. (For statistics of area and population, and the army, see "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1886.) Finances.--The revenue of the Imperial Government is known only by estimates. A writer estimates the ordinary revenue for 1885 at 64,000,000 taels, or about $87,000,000, of which 20,000,000 taels represent the portion of the land-tax that is payable in money; 7,000,000 taels the rice tribute to Pekin, and the rice levy in the provinces; 9,500,000 taels, the salttaxes; 13,000,000 taels the foreign customs; 5,000,000 taels the native maritime and inland taxes, and the new levy on opium; and 9,500,000 taels, levies on native opium, and on various other goods, native and foreign. The receipts from foreign customs are published regularly. They amounted, in 1885, to 14,472,766 taels. The larger expenditure is on the army, the cost of which is estimated to be about $75,000,000 per annum. The total foreign debt in 1887 amounted to about $25,000,000. A loan of 5,000,000 marks, bearing 51 per cent. interest was contracted in Berlin in 1887, being eagerly taken at a premium. The Imperial customs department is managed by foreigners, with an Englishman at the head, under whom are a large staff of European, American, and Chinese subordinates. It is organized similarly to the British civil service. In accordance with conventions concluded with foreign powers, the likin and barrier dues can be commuted by payment at the custom-house of 21 per cent. ad valorem, on all imported goods. A transit-pass is then issued which protects the goods from all local dues between the port and the market. The consolidated tax is much less than the aggregate of the separate dues, but the Pekin Government agreed to it because the money goes into the Imperial treasury, whereas the likin tax pur 65,005,711 haikwan taels, or $84,500,000. The chief imports were in value as follow: IMPORTS. Opium Raw cotton.. The leading exports in 1885 were valued at the following amounts: Tea.. EXPORTS. Silk. The imports to and exports from the principal foreign countries in 1885, were of the following values in taels: was collected by the provincial authorities. Education.-Literary knowledge is the only passport to official station; and a large section of the people devote their lives to the study of Chinese literature and the difficult art of literary composition, forming a special lettered class. Examinations are held annually for literary degrees, and the successful candidates are eligible for vacant posts in the public service. Within a short period, schools have been established for instruction in European learning, especially the physical and mathematical sciences and technical branches. Many valuable works have been translated into Chinese. The principal seminary for Western science and literature is the Tong Weng College in Pekin, a Government institution, presided over by an American, Prof William A. P. Martin, in which European and American instructors teach mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, natural history, physiology, anatomy, chemistry, and the English, French, German, and Russian languages, and Chinese professors impart the standard Chinese education. There are a number of colleges at Shanghai under the direction of Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries; also elementary schools at that and other seaboard cities, where ordinary branches of science and the English language are taught. Military and naval academies and torpedo-schools have recently been established in connection with the arsenals at Tientsin, Foochow, and Shanghai, in which European methods of warfare and Western languages and literature are taught by foreigners. Commerce. The total value of the imports in 1885 was 88,200,018 haikwan taels, or $114,600,000; the value of the domestic exports, Hong Kong. Japan COUNTRIES. Other European countries During 1885 the number of vessels entered and cleared at Chinese ports was 23,440, of 18,068 tons; of which 18,691, of 17,012,930 tons. were steamers. Of the total tonnage, 11,842,255 tons represented British vessels, 2,261,750 American, 2,243,534 Chinese, 1,217,685 German, 211,585 Japanese, and 73,355 French. Railroad Construction.-The Government has authorized the construction of a line of railway north of the Peiho from Taku to Tientsin. American Concessions.--An important charter was provisionally granted during the summer of 1887 to an American syndicate. The negotiations had been carried on for two years, on behalf of Wharton Barker, a banker of Philadelphia, and others, by the Count E. C. Mitkiewicz, an American citizen of Polish birth. The concessions embraced the privilege of establishing the American system of banking and coinage, and a scheme for introducing railroads of the American type; also a postal service, mining privileges, the construction of telephone lines, and the extension and operation of the telegraphs. The concessionnaires were to establish a mint for the coinage of silver on a system based partly on the American and partly on the Japanese coinage. They were to have the right to issue paper money on the plan of the American national banking system, and the refusal of Imperial loans. The syndicate proposed to construct first a railroad from Tientsin to Shanghai, a distance of 900 miles; then one from Shanghai to Nankin, and thence to Canton, 1,000 miles long; and afterward other lines, including one to the Russian frontier, and others designed to develop the working of the coal-fields and irondeposits. It also intended to erect mills for making rails and rolling-stock, and to introduce both the long and the short telephone systems. The concessions were actively opposed by the English and Germans, but received diplomatic support from Russia. The negotiations were carried on with the Viceroy Li-Hung Chang. After they had been concluded to the satisfaction of the Tsung-li-Yamen, the opposition was still continued, and the Imperial sanction was finally withheld. New Policy Toward Christians.-The Chinese Government has carried into execution the policy that it announced after the Tonquin hostilities of no longer recognizing France as the protector of Catholic Christians in China. The negotiations for the removal of the Pehtang Cathedral overlooking the garden of the Imperial palace at Pekin were conducted at the Vatican by John Dunn, an Englishman in the Chinese civil service. The Lazarist society, which constructed the cathedral over a century ago, and the Pope were entirely willing that the site should be changed, while the French at first resisted, but finally acquiesced. The Chinese Government gave the ground for the new cathedral and the money for its construction, stipulating that the edifice should not be over fifty feet high, which is thirty feet lower than the old one, and that the bell-tower should not be carried above the roof-ridge. Bishop Tagliabue and another missionary who aided in the negotiations, were made mandarins. The corner-stone of the new building was laid on May 30, 1887. The Pope was coerced by the French Government in 1886 into abandoning his intention of sending a legate to Pekin in accordance with the request of the Imperial Government, but a Chinese envoy was received at the Vatican, and Monsignor Agliardi, the Papal delegate to the East Indies, was authorized to treat with the Chinese Government, which in March, 1887, assented to this temporary arrangement, while reiterating its desire for the establishment of direct diplomatic relations. The Vatican is practically represented at Pekin by the Bishop of North China, Tagliabue. When the French consul in Canton interfered on behalf of some native Christians, Chang Chih-tung, the viceroy, denied in the strongest manner his right to make representations regarding Chinese subjects. In accordance with instructions from Pekin, the viceroys of the various provinces issued proclamations calling on the people to live at peace with the Christians, and explaining that the Christian religion teaches men to do right and aims to make them better citizens, and that the converts are not the less Chinamen because they are Christians, and have the same duties, and are entitled to the same protection as their neighbors. Formerly the French missionaries have obtained for their flocks, owing to the fears and ignorance of the local authorities, immunity from taxation and from the jurisdiction of the courts, claiming that they were under French protection. In the proclamations that were put forth by the governors the Christians were warned that they owed the same obedience to the laws as other Chinese, while all others were threatened with punishment if they committed unlawful acts against Christians, or disturbed their congregations. Anti-Christian riots took place in Chung-King in the province of Szechuen, in the course of which the house of a wealthy Christian named Lo was attacked. In defending themselves the inmates killed several of the assailants. The authorities arrested Lo, and on trial he was sentenced to death. At the solicitation of missionaries, M. Constans, the French minister, with some reluctance, represented to the Chinese Government the injustice of the sentence, with the result that Lo, who is said to have committed many previous offenses and escaped punishment through the protection of the missionaries, was immediately beheaded. Toward the close of April the Chinese Government ordered that all foreign missionaries must henceforth procure passports from their own Governments, as no others would be recognized. The German, Italian, and other Governments, had expressed their readiness to assume the protection of their own subjects, and had issued passports to Roman Catholic missionaries. Treaties with France and Portugal.-The treaty that was concluded with France in the spring of 1886 was so distasteful that the French Government refused to ratify it; and, recalling M. Cagordan, sent out M. Constans to reopen negotiations and endeavor to secure better terms. The principal concession granted to France was the opening of two places for trade above Langson and Laokai, through which the French might carry on commerce with the provinces of Yunnan and Kwangsi. The import duties were made a little lower than at the treaty ports. The admission of a French agent in Yunnan was strenuously refused; yet the right of China to appoint consuls throughout Tonquin was accorded, though the English have persistently refused to allow Chinese official representatives to reside at Hong-Kong or Singapore. The French were greatly disappointed at not being permitted to import opium into China, for they expected to raise the poppy successfully in Tonquin, and soon compete with the Malwa and Patna product. After a year's negotiations, by showing complaisance in regard to the protection of Roman Catholics, exercised by France for thirty years, and by giving up the promontory of Paklung on the Tonquin frontier, which both parties claimed for strategic reasons, M. Constans obtained more favorable commercial conditions. He was unable to secure the right to import salt into China, because that article is an Imperial monopoly and the source of a considerable revenue, but inserted a clause that the salt-farmers may purchase their supplies in Tonquin. The prohibition of the opium import from Tonquin was withdrawn, allowing the French to grow the drug for the southern Chinese if they can with profit, or to bring it in the raw state from Yunnan and manufacture it in Tonquin for the Chinese market. Finally the Chinese Government agreed that four places should be opened on the frontier to |