Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1907-01-24
Our South American Double.

We Americans think we have the
greatest country on earth. Not one in
a hundred of us knows that we have a
neighbor that is pretty nearly our twin
so far as size, resources and name go.
We are not th@ only United States in
the world. The United States of Brazil
is as big as we are, with half of Alaska
thrown in. She occupies almost one half
of the whole continent Of South
America.
AS for resources, Brazil is unlimited
in her natural products, possessing the
largest river system and the vastest for
ests in the world, producing, moreover,
three-fourths of the worlds coffee sup
ply and the greater part Of its rubber.
On the other hand, Brazils population
is little more than I6,ooo,ooo an average
of five persons TO the square mile. This
population is made up of Europeans,
aborigines and negroes.
Where these have met triple fusion
long since set in. There is small nil
nority of pure Portuguese descent. Por-
tuguese, by the way, is the language of
the country.
Not only is immigration welcome, but
finding that her envious neighbors were
robbing her of her colonists, Brazil has
retaliated by imposing a substantial tax
upon all persons leaving the country, a
measure as effective as it is radical.
Not satisfied with her great size, Bra
zil is constantly absorbing more terri
tory Expansion is the constant aim !;
expansion toward the River Plate,
whereby Uruguay for a time lost her
independence and never regained all the
territory that should be hers; expansion
at the expense of Paraguay and Peru,
and more recently Bolivia, which has
surrendered for a price her rich terri
| tory of Acre; expansion toward the
northwest and in Guiana, where recent
award mas deprived France of large
coveted area and added it to this insati-
| able republic.
Brazil is not lowland country, quite
three-fourths of her territory having an
altitude of more than 500 feet.
Politically the country is divided into
twenty-one states, but so unequally that
three Of these embrace almost all the
iowlands and are larger than the whole
area of the remaining eighteen. These
eighteen, however, contain 90 per cent
of the population, so that the first three
states, with territory larger than that
| of China, have population smaller than
| that of Connecticut.
The fertility and resources of this lat
ter region are great, but lest the reader
may rush off to seize upon them here is
| an extract from a report made by a
| r II.,sIod C1o&oo n,pe,,1 eoOo rd;p n
the valley Of the Amazon:
GAS one sails or steams tip the great
river there are seen occasional patches
of green, level vegetation, for all the
world like wondro.3N fertile meadows
1t is not difficult to imagine great herd:
of cattle feeding on them imtil the sight
of tapir more than knee deep in the
green ooze informs one of the real con
sistency of that tempting meadow.
do not say that there is absolutely NJ
| grazing land on the banks of the ANA
| Zon-T do say that there is very little
and that that little is all held by privat
owners.
"In these extraordinary forests Their
are found some of the most beautiful anC
valuable woods in the world, as we'll a
fruits, nuts, oils, balsams and gums, bu
and this but is insurmountable-tley
are found as rarely as diamonds or gold
nuggets in the streams.
There is false impression existing
that rubber trees, ebony, rosewood and
all the rest are found in great groves
or clusters, like Our pine or oak forests
The fact is that these trees are solitary
When two of them are only a quarter
of mile apart (and remember that the
quarter mile is not open space, but
thickly matted, almost impenetrable,
swamp forest) they are considered close
together; if they are mile apart they