e principal
business thoroughfare is part of the old National Road. Brazil's chief
industrial importance is due to its situation in the heart of the
"Brazil block" coal (so named because it naturally breaks into almost
perfect rectangular blocks) and clay and shale region; among its
manufactures are mining machinery and tools, boilers, paving and
enamelled building bricks, hollow bricks, tiles, conduits, sewer-pipe
and pottery. The municipality owns and operates its water-works. The
first settlement here was in 1844; and Brazil was incorporated as a town
in 1866, and was chartered as a city in 1873.

BRAZIL NUTS, the seeds of _Bertholletia excelsa_, a gigantic tree
belonging to the natural order Lecythidaceae, which grows in the valleys
of the Amazons and generally throughout tropical America. The tree
attains an average height of 130 ft., having a smooth cylindrical trunk,
with a diameter of 14 ft. 50 ft. from the ground, and branching at a
height of about 100 ft. The lower portion of the trunk presents a
buttressed aspect, owing to the upward extension of the roots in the
form of thin prop-like walls surrounding the stem. The fruit of the tree
is globular, with a diameter of 5 or 6 in., and consists of a thick hard
woody shell, within which are closely packed the seeds which constitute
the so-called nuts of commerce. The seeds are triangular in form, having
a hard woody testa enclosing the "kernel"; and of these each fruit
contains from eighteen to twenty-five. The fruits as they ripen fall
from their lofty position, and they are at the proper season annually
collected and broken open by the Indians. Brazil nuts are largely eaten;
they also yield in the proportion of about 9 oz. to each lb. of kernels
a fine bland fluid oil, highly valued for use in cookery, and used by
watchmakers and artists.

BRAZIL WOOD, a dye wood of commercial importance, obtained from the West
Indies and South America, belonging to the genera _Caesalpinia_ and
_Peltophorum_ of the natural order Leguminosae. There are several woods
of the kind, commercially distinguished as Brazil wood, Nicaragua or
Peach wood, Pernambuco wood and Lima wood, each of which has a different
commercial value, although the tinctorial principle they yield is
similar. Commercial Brazil wood is imported for the use of dyers in
billets of large size, and is a dense compact wood of a reddish brown
colour, rather bright when freshly cut, but becoming dull on e