BRAZIL', the most extensive state of South America. Towards the interior, it borders on all the other states of South America except Chili and Buenos Ayres—on Uruguay, the Argentine Confederation, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, the United States of Colombia, Venezuela, and Guiana, English, Dutch, and French; while its sea-board, beginning about 200 tn. to the n. of the Amazon, and reaching to within the same distance of the Plata, projects into the Atlantic fully 1000 m. to the e. of the direct line—pretty nearly a meridian—between its two extremes. This immense coup try extends between lat. 4° 30' n. and 33" s., and between long. 35 and 70° w., being, in round numbers, 2600 in. long and 2500 broad. The area, according to official ac counts, is 3,200,000 sq. miles. hut B. was not always, in point of extent, what it now is. The Portuguese, who, in 1500, accidentally discovered the s.e. coast of the country (but that only after one of the Pinzons had, on behalf of Spain, followed the shores of the continent from its eastern angle to the mouth of the Orinoco), claimed all between the Plata and the Amazon. Soon, however, the Spaniards of Buenos Ayres, feeling that the complete command of their mighty river was to them a necessary of life, colon ized the left bank by founding Montevideo. But nearly twenty years earlier, B. had acquired more territory on the Amazon than it was to abandon on the Plata, having, in 1509, wrested from France, then at war with Portugal, what may now be designated Brazilian Guiana. It was only in 1531 that the Portuguese, busy as they were in India, here planted their first settlement. In 1578, B. fell, along with Portugal itself, under the power of Spain—a connection which, besides being essentially detrimental, speedily threw it as a prey into the hands of the Dutch republic; and though Portugal regained its own independence in 1640, it was not until 1654 that B. was entirely recov ered from the Hollanders. Thenceforward, the colony entered on a new era. Sup planted, in a great measure, throughout the east by the Dutch, the mother-country was now directing most of its attention to its possessions on either side of the Atlantic. About a century and a half later, a still more beneficial change—and that, too, arising from the mother- country's own disasters—was inaugurated in the colony. In 1808, under the pressure of French invasion, the monarchy, in the persons of the royal family, was virtually transferred from Portugal to B., an event which, doubtless through
British counsels and influence, was immediately followed by the opening of the ports to foreigners. As a remoter benefit, too, of an incident which had no paralled either in English or in Spanish America, B., on shaking off, like its neighbors, the European yoke altogether, found a merely nominal revolution sufficient for its purpose, establish ing, or rather accepting, an hereditary empire instead of restless and precarious repub licanism; and ever since the transition-period of 1821-25, this consolidated government, with subordinate institutions for local objects, has secured to B.'s twenty vast provinces comparative unity and peace. A war was undertaken in 1865, in concert with the Argentine republic and Uruguay (formerly a province of B.), against Paraguay, which terminated in the defeat of the Paraguayans; and in 1872 Paraguay ceded to B., as a war-indemnity. the long-disputed territory comprised between the Paraguay and the Parana, n. of the Apa and Igatim. This territory has an extent of about 16,000 sq. miles.
The executive authority is vested in the emperor. who, besides being aided by a council of state, must act through responsible ministers. The legislature consists of two chambers, which sit four months every year. Both the deputies and the senators, who must have annual incomes respectively of 800 millreas and 1600 are indirectly elected by voters, who must possess 200 millreas per annum—the former for four years, -and the latter for life. The senate, however, appears to represent the crown as well as the people, inasmuch as each constituency merely nominates three individuals for his majesty's choice of one. Justices of peace, also, are appointed by the respective corn munities; and in the courts generally, whether civil or criminal, there prevails trial by jury. The budget of 1878-79 gave a revenue of 103,300,000 paper millreas, and expendi ture, 107,732,068 (the paper millrea is about half the value of the silver coin, which is about 2s.); the public debt in 1877 was 701,932,781 millreas—nearly £35,000,000. The standing army is fixed at 15,000 men on the peace-footing, and at 32,000 on the war footing; and the standing naval force is fixed at 4000 men, which may be raised to 8000 iu time of war. The navy in 1877 consisted of 56 vessels, including 53 steamers and 11 ironclads.