Γι STRAGRAPH, COPYRIGHT 1907, UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD, N. Y. THE CROYA LINE, PERU, PASSES OVER THE CHOPECHACHA TRESTLE AND THEN PIERCES THE FACE OF THE MOUNTAINS. provements. It has taken a well known metropolis in the eastern part of the United States four years to negotiate for the buildings on a fraction of that area to make room for a bridge approach and the buildings are standing yet. Having done these little chores this city of 800,000 inhabitants elected for mayor one of its most distinguished engineers, who had also won distinction for his administrative abilities, and told him to step lively and see if he couldn't stir things up a bit. Now the capital has a fine water sup ply, up-to-date gas, electric light and telephone services and a fine street railway system, including a line to the top of Corcovado mountain, 2,000 feet high, from which a matchless view can be obtained. The power plant for the railway is operated by a waterfall 1,030 feet high in the Rio das Lagos fifty miles away. Fifty thousand horsepower are already developed and the capacity can be increased to a total of 120,000 horsepower when required. A system of docks worthy of the most magnificent harbor in the world is being constructed by the Government at a cost of $30,000,000. The first section was opened in 1907 and the work will be completed in 1912. Plans are now being made for a superb capitol. All this is a part of the record of a single city, not all Brazil, which, it must be remembered, could match the United States-minus Alaska-in size and have enough real estate left over to make four states the size of New York. One of its rivers has a flow three times that of the Mississippi, another is twice as large as the Father of Waters and still another equal in size. Twelve thousand miles of railroad are already in operation and building is being conducted on an extensive scale. Congress has authorized the administration to revise leases of the Federal railways and to have dining and sleeping car equipment. American interests have secured control of a system of rail and water transportation forming a belt line around the whole of the better portion of Brazil, which, with Government railways and Government subsidized steamships and steamboats, reaches almost every portion of the immense republic. One part of the system represents the connection of Bolivia with the Atlantic ocean by means of Bolivian railways being built by the Speyer syndicate of New York, and Bolivian rivers and the Madeira-Marmore Railway upon which the Government of Brazil is bound by treaty with Bolivia to expend $10,000,000 within the next few years, and the Amazon. The best part of Brazil for settlement and the richest in timber and minerals will be developed by the lines of this American syndicate. That part of the system in the south east will reach tidewater at Rio Grande do Sul. European engineers have been trying in vain for years to remove the bar which obstructs the entrance to this harbor. Now E. L. Corthell, the distinguished American engineer, has made plans for developing the harbor at a cost of $14,000,000, which will be carried out by an American company of which he is the head, and which will operate the port under a concession from the Government. The railroad will be extended to the quay, which will be equipped with fireproof warehouses, electric cranes and all the other twentieth century devices for handling freight at the lowest cost. Still another part of the American syndicate's work will be to build a line 600 miles long from the port of San Francisco to the stupendous Iguazu Falls, much larger and higher than Niagara. where connection will be made with the Paraguay railroad system through which connection with the Bolivian lines will be made, for Bolivia is to reach the Atlantic both to the north by way of the Amazon and to the south by way of Paraguay. This American coup has rather put England's nose out of joint; for a great deal of English capital has been invested in Brazil. The Americans have undertaken development upon a scale so extensive that its ultimate effects will be felt in every line of business. A number of other railroad enterprises. less comprehensive in scope are being carried out by Brazilian companies. While private capital is developing the railroads and inland waterways to bring the products of the republic to tidewater other corporations under concessions. from the Government are expending millions in equipping Brazilian ports for the great commerce which is anticipated. Besides Rio Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, the ports of Pernambuco, Bahia, Victoria and Para are being improved on a grand scale. Perhaps the most important of these works is at Para, a city with a population of 140,000, situated on the right bank of the Para river or estuary sixty-five miles from the Atlantic ocean. The deep water from the ocean reaches almost to the city, which is the dividing point between ocean and river navigation. More than a hundred steamboats ply on the twenty thousand miles of navigable rivers above, some going as far as Iquitos in Peru, two thousand miles up the Amazon. The first section of quay wall, 4,900 feet long, with thirty-three feet of water alongside, will be completed in 1912. Another section 3,280 feet long will be completed later. The whole will be equipped with steel warehouses, electric cranes and capstans. While an English firm is building the quay and a French firm is supplying the electric installation an American firm secured the $2,050,000 contract for building an electric street railway system and. electric light plant. Brazil's cotton mills, carefully fostered by the Government, are rapidly cutting down the imports of cotton goods. A generous subsidy has Its six million people carried on a foreign trade aggregating $562,000,000 in 1906, which is as much as Japan's forty millions or China's four hundred millions accomplished the same year. In the last ten years the area under cultivation in Argentina has trebled, while England has poured a billion dollars and France and Germany two hun- . dred millions each into the industries of the country. At the present rate of growth Argentina's exports of wheat will equal those of the United States in a very few years. Perhaps, too, the beef LAYING THE TRACKS THAT ARE TO GIVE MONTEVIDEO A MODERN TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM. MODERN TRAMWAY STATION AT BUENOS AYRES. recently been offered for a paper mill and another for iron works. Argentina, though only one-third as large as Brazil, is developing under the same, high pressure. Argentina, in fact, is one of the richest nations, if not the richest nation, in South America today. trust may find a formidable competitor in its own territory in the frozen meats from Argentina's vast pampas. Argentina's seventeen thou sand miles of railroads, the trains on which equal those of the United States in speed and comfort, showed an increase of twenty-five per cent in passenger traffic and fifteen per cent in freight traffic last year. In six years the increase has been one hundred per cent. Work is being |