which, under careful fiscalization, would give an annual sum of over one million milreis to the Treasury." The report gives the following particulars as to the present condition of the foreign and home debt :— APPENDIX II. A SEVERE WINTER IN MINAS GERAES. I HAVE mentioned that the inhabitants of Brumado, in Minas Geraes, told me of the extraordinary frosts of the year 1870. I now give some details thereof, translated, by special permission of the author, from M. Emmanuel Liais's very valuable book. * "On the high table-lands of Minas Geraes, between São Paolo, Barbacena, and the extensive mountains in the neighbourhood of Ouro Preto, whose heights range from nine hundred to eleven hundred metres, the mean temperature is on an average 5° centigrade below that of sea level on the same parallel, and, owing to the difference of latitude, about 4° centigrade below that of Rio de Janeiro. At Atalaia, near the last-named city, the lowest temperature given by my minimum thermometer, under good conditions of free access to air and guarded against radiation, hast been 10.8°o centigrade, and that is in one year only. Generally the yearly minimum never went below 12.5° centigrade. "Real frost was quite unknown on the highlands, nonagenarians never remembered having seen any, and were astonished when, in the month of June, 1870, this phenomenon was produced with an extraordinary intensity for those regions. This time the frost was very persistent, and lasted five or six days, from Barbacena to the Serras of Ouro Branco, in all the eastern boundaries of the central highlands of Minas. This phenomenon was local, limited, unaccompanied by abnormal temperatures in other regions of Brazil not far distant. I was then in the centre of the province of Bahia, where the temperature was as high as usual; * “Climats, Géologie, Faune, et Géographie Botanique du Brésil,” p. 584, et seq. and after my return to Rio de Janeiro, I found, in the following August, the index of my minimum thermometer 12.5° centigrade above zero, which thus showed me the lowest temperature at Rio de Janeiro for about a year (since my departure), and assured me also, that in Rio nothing abnormal in the temperature had existed during the extraordinary cold of Minas Geraes. "However, the cold at Barbacena had been sufficiently intense and prolonged to enter the houses, where water froze. In this country, it is true, the houses have not as thick walls as in cold countries, chimneys are wholly unknown, and cooking is done in ovens. These conditions are amply sufficient for ordinary winters, for the low temperatures of from 3° to 4° centigrade above zero (32° Fahr.) . are only towards dawn, and have not time to penetrate to the inside. After sunrise, the temperature rises again very quickly, and these circumstances explain the absence and uselessness of chimneys in the rooms. But, at the same time, they show how abnormal was the phenomenon with which we are now occupied, and explain the ease with which frost can enter the dwellings. The Visconde de Prados was at Rio at the time of the phenomenon; but on returning to Barbacena in the month of August, he found that the minimum thermometer placed in his drawing-room (which had remained closed) registered 2915° Fahr., that is, 15° centigrade below zero. I This indicates how intense and prolonged the cold must have been outside. The French vice-consul at Barbacena, M. Renault, told me that the thermometer on the last day went down to nearly 6° centigrade below zero, outside; but this temperature only lasted for a very short time. Nevertheless, evidently the temperature must have remained some time at from 2° to 3° centigrade below zero during this last night, otherwise the thermometer could not have gone down to 14° centigrade under melting ice, inside a closed frame; and, again, this was only explicable by the extreme low temperature which had already existed for several days, when, on preceding nights, the thermometer had been a little below zero (32° Fahr.). Some sugar-cane plantations were destroyed, streams were frozen, and many dead fish were observed. Some forests were entirely frozen, as if they had been scorched by fire, and many young trees perished. Many persons also fell victims to the cold, in the open country, where the "tropeiros," or mule-drivers, are barely covered with cotton clothing, and often lie under open sheds, or even outside. "At first sight, the explanation of this abnormal phenomenon is difficult, for the lower lying currents of air (vents inférieures), coming from the far-distant southern regions, cannot reach these latitudes at a low temperature, as they are warmed along the whole of their course by contact with the soil under the influence of solar radiation. A direct descent of cold air from the higher regions of the atmosphere cannot take place without a considerable increase in the heat of that air, in virtue of the compression it sustains (compression éprouvée), and consequently one cannot have recourse to the pure and simple hypothesis of an atmospheric current descending, especially as the phenomenon in question would then be frequent. The only possible explanation is, therefore, to admit that in a much more southern latitude, where, consequently, the winter might be very severe (pouvait sévir avec rigueur)—for the month of June is a winter month in the southern hemisphere—a great mass of cold air, at a temperature far below zero (centigrade), and due to a very strong radiation from the earth's surface and to southerly winds, was carried, by a cause whose origin we will presently examine, to a great height above the surface. By expansion, owing to such an elevation, its temperature was again lowered to a great extent; but this would once more attain its original condition if the mass of air descended again to its former level. Then, driven northwards at its high elevation, the current approached the equator without becoming much warmer, contrary to what would have happened had it passed over the soil, for the solar rays raise the temperature of the air in passing along, and we know that, above all, it is warmed by going over the soil, and by the ascending currents which its passage occasions. But, on approaching the latitude of the table-lands of Minas Geraes, this cold mass of air descended to the level of the plateau, and the warming resulting from the descent could only bring back its original temperature, and even that only by supposing that it did not primarily come from a lower level than the plateau. Therefore, it could then have carried there a still lower temperature than its original condition, except the small increase gained by solar rays in its course, and also a slight mixture with less cool strata of air. "This being granted, one easily understands that, as at the extremity of South America, in latitudes where temperatures of 12°, 15°, or even of 20° below zero (centigrade) are occasionally possible in winter on the surface of the ground and near the level of the sea, a strong wind, that is to say, a great mass of air moving W.S.W. to E.N.E., beat against the mass of the southern Andes, where, by its acquired velocity, it ascended, still keeping its E.N.E. direction. . . . Then, in the higher current, its northerly movement was retained, and by terrestrial rotation it gradually lost its easterly direction, until, after a long westerly movement, it finally became a south wind. For this frozen wind to gain at once the latitude and level of the plateau of Barbacena, it is now sufficient . . . to meet favourable circumstances to extend northwards. . . . Thus we see that for this phenomenon there was needed a rare combination of numerous and fortuitous circumstances over a considerable journey." I will next translate a few extracts concerning other meteorological phenomena; but space prevents my giving more than very short summaries, and excludes my detailing the causes, for which I refer those interested to M. Liais's exhaustive work. HAIL. "The hailstones are large, very hard, and I have seen them take three or four minutes to melt. In 1862, I observed four falls of hail in November. There are, according to the inhabitants, on an average twenty in a year. At Rio de Janeiro falls of hail are rare. I have only known four from 1858 to 1864, of which I saw three; and two others from 1865 to 1871. The first fall was on February 22, 1859, when there were only a few hailstones mixed with a heavy storm of rain. Two others were on October 22 and 30, 1863, during heavy storms, accompanied by thunder. The hailstones were lenticular. I measured some, eighteen millimetres in diameter, and one millimetre thick. They produced a general surprise; and I have seen persons of sixty years of age who never remembered having seen the like. But the fourth fall was the most remarkable. It occurred October 10, |