flour, the Government in September reduced to 15 reis per kilogramme the duty on foreign wheat till July 31, 1894.

The new consolidated debt on June 30, 1890, amounted to 573,211,934 milreis, of which 258,214,934 milreis were the new internal bonds bearing 3 per cent. interest, 210,902,779 milreis represent the foreign debt of £50,801,576 sterling funded at the same rate, and 104,178,466 milreis were amortizable debts bearing 5, 44, and 4 per cent. interest. There remained unconverted 125,036 milreis of the internal and 2,252,363 milreis of the foreign debt. The amount of interest paid on all the debts in 1889 was 17,730,807 milreis.

The Army and Navy.-The law of Sept. 12, 1887, introduced obligatory service for three years from the age of twenty. A decree of July 23, 1891, reduces the service with the colors to eight months in the second and four months in the third year. Substitution is allowed and leaves are granted under the decree of June 30, 1891, sufficient in number to restrict the effective to 22,000 men. The contingent for 1893 was 14,264 men. Including the furloughed, the permanent army in 1892 numbered 2,089 officers and 25,658 rank and file, with 3,985 horses. With the municipal and fiscal guards included, there were 2,346 officers and 32,625 men. The war effective reaches 4,000 officers and 150,000 men, with 23,000 horses and 264 guns. For 1894 the peace effective has been fixed at 30,000 men.

The navy consists of 1 armored corvette, of 2,422 tons, with 6 cannon above and 3 below 10 centimetres; 6 corvettes with 6 large and 42 small guns; 14 gunboats, with 17 large and 36 small guns; 6 stationary vessels, with 12 small guns: 9 small gunboats; 2 transports; and 4 torpedo boats.

Commerce. The special imports of merchandise for 1891 were 39,529,946 milreis and of specie 8,269,727 milreis. The special exports of merchandise were 21,378,330 milreis and of specie 29,803,648 milreis. The chief exports are cereals, cotton goods, machinery and instruments, iron, coal, sugar, woolens, codfish, raw cotton, railroad material, chemicals, animals, timber, wool, skins and leather, silks, rice, coffee, and butter and cheese. The values of the leading exports for 1891 were as follow: Wine, 10,122,000 milreis; cork, 2,951.000 milreis; fish, 1,416.000 milreis; copper, 1,033.000 milreis; animals, 403,000 milreis; onions, 288,000 milreis. Of the goods imported, 34 per cent. in value consisted of articles of aliment, 35 per cent. of animals, 28.9 per cent. of raw materials, and 33.6 per cent. of manufactured articles, while of the exports 75.5 per cent. consisted of foods and drinks, 2-3 per cent. of animals, and 23-2 per cent. of raw materials.

Navigation. There were entered 3.708 steamers, of 5,181,000 tons, and 2,554 sailing vessels, of 363,000 tons, engaged in foreign commerce at the ports of Portugal in 1891, and cleared 3.721 steamers, of 5.187.000 tons, and 2,720 sailing vessels, of 351.000 tons. The merchant navy in 1891 consisted of 67 steamers, of 108,601 cubic metres, and 486 sailing vessels, of 101.711 cubic metres. The Royal Mail Steamship Company, which formerly traded with southeast Africa and afterward with Brazil, became bankrupt in 1893.

Communications.-There were 1.335 miles of railroads in operation in 1891 and 96 miles building. The state owned 505 miles. The post-office in 1891 carried 20,851,000 domestic letters, 4,768,000 postals, and 20,389,000 other pieces, and 7,593,000 foreign letters, 270,000 postals, and 4,902,000 other pieces, besides those forwarded through. The total length of the state telegraph lines in 1891 was 3,985 miles, with 8,839 miles of wire. The number of private internal messages for that year was 582,066, and of international messages 584,619. The receipts of the post-office from mail and telegraphs were 6,057,789 francs and the expenses 7,196,653 francs. A British company in the autumn of 1893 laid down a cable from Lisbon to the Azores, which it expects to continue to North or South America.

Change of Cabinet.-The Dias Ferreira ministry, after the meeting of the Cortes in January, 1891, had a conflict with the Finance Committee of the Chamber, which wanted to consider the budget and the plan of new taxation, and thus calculate the means at the disposal of the Government for paying the interest on the debt, while the ministry insisted on first receiving sanction for the decree of June 13, 1892, cutting down the rate of interest on the foreign debt by two thirds. Rather than face a Cabinet crisis, the Chamber supported the Government for the nonce. There was much dissatisfaction with the Cabinet among the Conservatives as well as among the Progressists and Republicans. The wine growers believed that their interests had been sacrificed for the benefit of distillers. The Republicans led the attack on the moribund ministry, which had submitted a scheme of exceedingly onerous taxation; and when Dias Ferreira found that he could not obtain the cooperation of the Chamber in his plans for settling with the foreign creditors, he proposed, anticipating a hostile vote, to prorogue or dissolve Parliament. A fresh protest from the German Government against any solution of the question of the external debt that had not the consent of the bondholders may have impelled him to seek escape from office and the responsibility of carrying out his declared purposes. Dissolution the King refused to sanction, whereupon the Cabinet resigned on Feb. 21, 1893. Hintze Ribeiro was asked to form a new one, and on Feb. 23 it was constituted as follows: President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs, E. R. Hintze Ribeiro; Minister of the Interior, João Franco Pinto Castello Branco; Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs, Antonio de Azevedo Castello Branco; Minister of Finance, Augusto M. Fuschini; Minister of War, Col. L. A. Pimentel Pinto; Minister of Marine and the Colonies, Capt. J. A. de Brissac dos Neves Ferreira; Minister of Public Works, Commerce, and Industry, Bernardino L. Machado; Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts ad interim, J. F. Pinto Castello Branco. The new Cabinet represented chiefly the Regenerador party, led by Serpa Pimentel, from which the majority of its members were taken. The ministerial programme embraced amnesty for political offenses, freedom of the press to criticise the existing responsible ministers, an effective Government control over the banks, and the payment of the foreign

debt as far as possible, without imposing new taxes, none at any rate that would fall on the working classes. The Cortes adjourned till May 15 to give time to the ministers to frame a new budget and the other promised measures after sanctioning a general ainnesty to press, election, and political offenders, excepting some military officers who issued a pronunciamiento at Oporto on Jan. 31. Negotiations with the foreign creditors, which Dias Ferreira had broken off with the intention of cutting down the interest payments to one third the legal amount when they were willing to give up one half in view of the financial straits of the Government, were resumed by Hintze Ribeiro. The alcohol monopoly established by a decree of July 8, 1892, was canceled on the ground that it was illegally constituted and had withheld the royalties due to the state. The new Finance Minister, who was a Socialist, with a disposition to collect the taxes more rigorously than his predecessors and encash all arrears, and also prune down expenses, submitted a budget for 1894 which showed a saving of 1,875 contos (1 conto of reis = 1,000 milreis) in the public services and a surplus of 800 contos in the ordinary budget, but a deficit in the extraordinary budget. An arrangement was made with the foreign bondholders whereby they were guaranteed 33 per cent. of the regular interest in gold plus half any excess of revenue above 11,400 contos from imports, excepting tobacco and grain and exports, excepting port wine, and half the benefit of any decrease in the gold premium below 22 per cent. The holders of the internal and external debts should have exactly the same privileges. This arrangement was approved by the Chamber on May 16. A plan of increasing the paper currency proposed by the preceding ministry was rejected by Fuschini, who fixed the limit of circulation at 52,000 contos. Among the new taxes was one of 12 per cent. on dividends or profits of foreign banks doing business in Portugal. The others were designed to affect principally the richer classes. Increased taxes on real estate, certain articles of consumption, and domestic alcohol were expected to realize 1,700 contos. Special taxes were imposed on foreign insurance and industrial companies, against which the British Government protested.

Colonial Possessions.-The Portuguese possessions in Africa comprise the Cape Verde Islands, Portuguese Guinea, St. Thomas and Prince's Island, Angola, and the state of East Africa, having an aggregate area of 840,000 square miles and a population estimated at 13,482,000. In Asia, Goa, including Damão and Diu, Macao, and Timor have a combined area of 76,700 square miles and 881,000 inhabitants. The budgets of the colonies for 1891 make 3,784,809 milreis for receipts and 3,910,105 milreis for ordinary and 785,080 milreis for extraordinary expenses. The imports of East Africa in 1891 were £215,655 sterling in Mozambique and £497,533 in Delagoa Bay for imports, and £111,493 in Mozambique and £895 in Delagoa Bay for exports. The imports of Angola were valued at $5,477,629, and the exports at $4,129,000. The chief exports are coffee, gum, wax, and ivory. There are 142 miles of railroad in Angola built and 217 miles under construction.

In East Africa the Delagoa Bay Railroad has a length of 51 miles. The Zambesi and Beira Railroad had been completed for a length of 75 miles at the end of 1893, and 35 miles more were under construction: An English company was authorized in May, 1893, to build a railroad from Quilimane to the Shire river. The Portuguese extended their posts in 1893 to the confluence of the Limpopo and Elephant rivers, against which the native chief Gungunhana, who has previously given them much trouble, raised a protest. A joint commission that was appointed to delimit the boundary between Portuguese East Africa and the territory of the British South Africa Company could not conclude its labor in the beginning of 1893, because in the district between Massikesse and Chimanamane Ennes, the Portuguese commissioner would not concede to Great Britain the rich Mutare valley, in which valuable gold veins had been discovered. A new customs tariff for Portuguese East Africa introduces differential rates of 40 or 50 per cent., or higher, in favor of certain Portuguese products, as 40 per cent. on alcoholic beverages. In Goa there is a railroad, 50 miles in length, connecting with the British West of India Railroad. The Portuguese Government used to hand over to this British company, having guaranteed its bonds, the subsidy of 400,000 rupees that it received from the Indian Government under the treaty of 1878. That treaty having been abrogated by Great Britain, the excise duties of Goa, amounting to 600,000 rupees, have now been abandoned to the company.

PRECIOUS STONES. The growing taste for art in the United States, shown in the improved methods of book illustration, a fondness for etchings, the production of new forms of jewelry and the manufacture of unexcelled silverware, is further manifested in a greater appreciation of gems and the exercise of increased judgment in their selection. During the past decade new stones have come into favor, some neglected ones have regained their popularity, and others have been thrown out entirely. bies were considered expensive ten years ago, but at present they are still higher, an eightcarat stone being quoted at $33,000; and cameos, no matter how finely cut, could not now find purchasers at one fifth their former value. A syndicate of French capitalists has been organized to control the topaz mines of Spain, in the expectation that after twenty years of disfavor this gem will again find itself in fashion.

Ru

South Africa.-Originally the mines of Kimberley were worked as 3,238 separate claims, each 31 feet square, with a 7-foot roadway between every pair of claims; but since 1877 these have been gradually consolidated until at present they are united into fewer than 40 companies. The primitive method of washing by sieves has been replaced by the most ingenious and powerful machinery, which, though it be eyeless, allows fewer diamonds to escape than would the keenest and best disciplined army of washers. Originally miles of wire cable, to which were attached buckets for carrying the refuse running from individual claims, were stretched across the mine in all directions. Some of these were almost level with the surface, while others were cut down 200 feet, and still

others 100 feet, yet all were worked independently. At the sides were endless belts with pockets for carrying the earth. The result of this was that rock was dropped so recklessly in transit that it was dangerous to stand around the edges of the claims. Not only was the loss of life great from this source, but also from the falling of immense masses of reef, loosened by the blasting, which sometimes buried a score of men at once. Steam railroads are now run into the mine, parts of which have been leveled, and millions of tons of reef have been removed. The yellow soil on the surface, which overlay the blue stuff, pulverized so readily that it could be taken to the washing machine direct; but as claims were sunk down into the blue, the rock grew harder, and dynamite became necessary. After the earth is raised, it is put on the sorting ground, where it is disintegrated by the action of water and

So

the atmosphere. It is then broken by hand and taken to the "compound," or diamond-sorting machine, into which the rock is thrown from the sorting and breaking floors. After being more finely ground, it is passed into large vats containing immense centrifugal wheels, by means of which the rock is finely divided. The lighter materials-such as mud, quartz, and mica-are then floated out, while diamond gar

which is on the cofferdam principle. There are 7 shafts and inclined planes in the Kimberley mine alone, all sunk at some point in the reef outside the mine. From 11,000,000 to 13,000,000 gallons of water were annually hoisted from this mine at a cost of 6d. a load of 100 gallons. In addition to many miles of aërial tramways, there are over 170 miles of tramway around the 4 Kimberley mines, 2,500 horses, mules, and oxen, and 350 steam engines, shafts, and other appliances, representing 4,000 horse power, are emA million pounds are ployed in the work. annually expended for labor, and over £1,000,000 for fuel and other supplies. The gross capital of the companies is nearly £10,000.000. Over 10,000 natives, each receiving £1 a week, and 12,000 European overseers at an average wage of £5, are employed. The old system of

open working has been abandoned, and a rock shaft has been completed that taps the lower levels.

In five years the De Beers mine yielded 344,015 carats, valued at £3,450,338, an average of £1 6d. a carat. This includes everything taken from the mine. At the beginning the yield was four tenths carat a load, but, as the mining has been carried to a greater depth, the output increased until last year it was eight tenths carat. The average value of a carat of diamonds for some years from the respective mines was as follows: Kimberley mine, 178. 61d.; De Beers mine, 178. 8d.; Bultfontein, 18s. 24d.; Dutoit's Pan, 248. 74d.; River Digging, 478. 6d. The product of the last-named mine, while only of the weight in carats, was worthy of the entire product, the stones averaging of a much finer quality. The yield of the African mines has been great, and the diamonds have averaged much larger than those from the older mines. The discovery of a 17-carat stone in the Brazilian diggings was sufficient to secure the freedom of the slave who found it; but stones of this size are found by the hundred in Africa. One fifth to one quarter of all the yield, it is estimated, have never reached the proper owners, as the native diggers swallow and conceal the diamonds in every possible manner. Hence it became necessary for the companies, in self-defense, to take extraordinary precautions against this great loss, and overseers or special searchers are appointed to make the most thorough examination of all who leave the mines. None but those authorized by law, termed patented agents, less than 50 in number, are allowed to purchase or even to possess rough diamonds at Kimberley. The actual loss of the diamonds would not have been so great but for the irregular diamond buyers, or "1. D. B's.," as the "fences" are called, who sent the stones to England and undersold the company in the London market. This pilfering was in a great measure checked by the adoption of the "compound system," by which the "boys are housed and fed under contract for a certain term, and provided with amusements and liquor. They are thus kept apart from the influences of the vicious whites, who instigate them to crime with "Cape smoke" in their "canteens," as the groggeries run by the I. D. B's. are called. Visitors who buy from native diggers what they suppose to be valuable diamonds, and secrete them until they have passed beyond the officials, find to their disgust that they have purchased facsimiles in glass, perfect even to the characteristic yeilow tint that is peculiar to many diamonds from this locality.

The Victoria," the "Great White," or the "Imperial" diamond is supposed to be from South Africa. It is the largest brilliant in the world. The original weight of the stone was 4574 carats, or 366 ounces Troy. It is believed that it was discovered in one of the Kimberley mines. It is supposed that during the summer of 1884 the stone was found by one of the surveillance officers of the Central Mining Company. His duty being to search others, he was not searched himself, and so smuggled the stone through the searching house. He then communicated with 4 illicit diamond buyers, and £3,

000 is said to have been the price he obtained for the stone. To prepare for the transportation of the stone, the 4 I. D. B's. assembled at night, and after a debauch 2 of the party lost their share by gambling. The other 2 reached Cape Town in safety, where diamond laws are not in force, and from a dealer there they received £19,000 in cash for the stone. An outward duty of one half of 1 per cent. is collected on all shipments of diamonds from Cape Colony, but this diamond is said to have been carried by one of the passengers of a mail steamer, and was undeclared. It was next heard of in London, where it caused considerable sensation at Hatton Garden, the great diamond market. After some time had been spent in trying to find a capitalist who could afford to buy the gem, a syndicate was formed of 32 shares, and the stone was bought for £45,000 cash, on condition that when it should be disposed of each shareholder should receive a thirty-second part in the profits. Before cutting, it was estimated that the crystals would furnish either of the following gems: As a briollette, 300 carats; as a drop, 230 to 240 carats; as a lozenge, 250 carats; and as a mathematically-perfect brilliant, 150 carats. If cut in the latter form, it would give cleavages that would yield one 40-carat and one 20-carat stone, and 40 carats of smaller stones. It was decided to cut it into the largest possible brilliant, still preserving a good shape, and Amsterdam was selected as the place where the gem could best be cut. It was accordingly sent to the polishing mills of Jacques Metz, who erected a special workshop for the purpose, and selected M. B. Barends to cut it. In order to obtain the bril liant cutting, a piece was cleaved off which furnished a 19-carat diamond, and this was sold to the King of Portugal for £4,000. The cutting of the large stone, which was begun in the presence of the Queen of Holland, took about twelve months; for instead of being cut by abrasion with another diamond, as is usually done, it was polished down on the scarf or wheel, and a great amount of time was consumed in allowing the stone to cool off when it had become heated after an hour's running on the wheel. The stone in its finished condition weighs 180 carats, and is a beautiful, perfect, steel-blue diamond, and is the largest brilliant in the world, although flat on one side. It is 39.5 mm. (1 inch) long, 30 mm. (1 inch) wide, and 23 mm. (1 inch) thick, being exceeded in size by one diamond only, the Orloff, belonging to the Russian Crown. This weighs 1944 carats, but it is a large deep rose, and not a brilliant. The " Victoria" exceeds the "Regent" in weight by 444 carats, while the "Kohinoor" weighs only 106 carats.

The "Tiffany" diamond weighs 125 carats. It is a "double-deck" cut brilliant, absolutely perfect, and undoubtedly the finest large yellow diamond known. It was found in the Kimberley mine in 1879, and was cut in Paris. One of its most pleasing features is that it not only retains the rich yellow color by artificial light, but it is then even more beautiful than by day. It has 40 facets on the crown, 44 facets on the pavilion or lower side of the stone, and 17 facets on the girdle-in all, 101. Owing to its deep color, it is a finer stone than the historical "Star of the

South" (125 carats), which was purchased by the Maharajah of Baroda for $400,000 at the World's Fair held in Paris in 1867. It also rivals the Florentine," which weighed 133 carats and was sold for 2,000,000 florins, but it is only a long double rose or drop, and not a brilliant.

"Du Toit 1," which weighs 244 carats in the rough, the "Great Orange" weighs 110 carats, the "Porter Rhodes," a perfectly white stone of 150 carats before cutting, and many other large stones have been found in the Kimberley mines. In March, 1888, there was found in the De Beers mine an octahedral crystal of diamond weighing 4284 carats. It is not entirely white, having a slight yellow tinge, and was valued at £3,000.

More diamonds of over 75 carats after cutting have been found since the African mines were opened than were known before. Thirty-eight million carats of diamonds, weighing over 7 tons, have been found here. In the rough their aggregate value is £50,000,000, and after cutting £100,000,000, or nearly $500,000,000 more than the world's output during the two preceding centuries. Of the whole yield, not more than 8 per cent. can be said to be of the first water, 12 per cent. of the second water, and 25 per cent. of the third, while the remaining 45 per cent. is called boart, a substance that when crushed to a powder is used for cutting hard substances and engraving. This must not be confounded with the carbon (carbonado) found in Brazil, an uncrystalline form of the diamond which is used in drills and has never been found in South Africa, and is worth from 6 to 10 times as much as boart. Nothing will cut glass but the natural crystal edge of a diamond. Glass will scratch glass, while even a cut diamond or a cleavage face will only produce a scratch, although almost every finder of a curious pebble is sure that it will cut glass like a diamond.

Brazil.-The diamond mines at Salabro, near the river Pardo, Brazil, known as the Canavieiras, were discovered in 1882 by a miner who had worked in the earlier and now nearly exhausted mines. The gems were found at a depth of about two feet in red gravel, are fine in quality, and are remarkable for their purity and whiteness, the crystals being such that scarcely any cleaving is necessary. When the Brazilian mines were discovered, the stones were sent to India to enter the European markets in Indian wrappers. Similarly, diamonds from Africa were sent to Canavieiras to be shipped to Europe as the product of that mine. Other Brazilian mines have been only slightly worked of late years. The black diamond, carbonado, or boart, used for diamond drills, saws, etc., has fluctuated in price very much.

Specimens of that very curious form known as "round boart," found only in Brazil, were shown at the Amsterdam exhibition of 1882. They were perfect spheres, the result of a multiple twinning of the cubic form of the diamond. In order to determine its hardness, one of these was cut into the rude outline form of a brilliant by Tiffany & Company, who placed its table on an iron polishing wheel with a little diamond dust, revolving at the rate of 2,800 a minute. The circumference of that part of the wheel on VOL. XXXIII-41 A

which the diamond was placed was about 24 feet. It remained there ten hours a day for one hundred days, so that the surface that traveled over this diamond amounted to 80,000 mles. Four and, at times, 8 pounds of pressure were added to the usual 24 pounds and 24 pounds of the clamps or holder, while for a time 40 pounds extra were added, causing the diamond to throw out scintillations several feet long. The wheel was plowed up and ruined, yet no polish was produced, and the diamond was only slightly ground away.

Australia. About 12,000 diamonds have been found in the Tertiary gravels and recent drift near Bingera, in Inverell, Australia; also along the Cudgegon river, 160 miles northeast of Sydney, and in other districts. The colors are white, straw, yellow, light brown, pale green, and black. The largest stones found were cut into gems weighing 34 and 3 carats respectively. A trial made by the Australian Diamond Mining Company produced 190 diamonds, weighing 1974 carats, from the washing of 279 loads of earth.

United States.-The similarity of the South African peridotite to a peridotite found in Elliot County, Ky., led H. Carvil Lewis to suggest interesting possibilities there, and John W. Powell, director of the United States Geological Survey, sent Joseph S. Diller and George F. Kunz to examine the Kentucky peridotite. The associated minerals were identical with the South African, the pyrope garnet, ilmenite, biotite, and pyroxene being present, but by analysis of the inclosed carbonaceous shales from which it is believed that the diamond is formed, it was found that the Kentucky shale contained only 681 per cent. of carbon, while the South African contained 35 per cent. and could be readily ignited with a match. Hence, unless the peridotite has penetrated the older and richer Devonian shales, the probability of finding diamonds there has been considerably lessened by the investigation. A beautiful twinned hexoctahedral diamond crystal of 4 carats was found in Dysartville, N. C., in June, 1886. A boy discovered the "pretty trick," as he called it, at a spring, and it was some time before it was suspected to be a diamond. None of the associations of the diamond were observed at the spring, therefore it is probable that the stone was carried there by some miner who was washing up his gold and failed to notice the shining crystal among the "wash-up." It was of a faint grayish-green tint, quite perfect as a gem, and would make, when cut, a stone worth about $100. A number of stones called diamonds have been found at Brackettstown, N. C., but they have proved on examination to be transparent zircon or smoky quartz.

Meteoric Diamonds. A meteoric stone weighing about 4 pounds fell on Sept. 4, 1886, at Novy Urej, Krasnoslobodsk, in the Government of Penza, Siberia, in which M. Latchinoff and Jorefeif discovered what they supposed to be diamonds of microscopic size. In an insoluble residue small corpuscles showing traces of polarization were found, harder than corundum, and having the density and other characteristics of the diamond. A small piece of the meteorite treated with solvents gave a residue of 12 small trans