The principal naval establishment is at Rio de Janeiro, near the landing dock. The naval yards here are quite extensive, and a couple of thousand men are usually employed. Several small cruisers and some river boats have been constructed there, but all the large boats have been built abroad, and the most of them in British yards. At the present time the boats listed in the Brazilian navy number about fifty. This includes every vessel, large and small, many of which are practically useless from the modern view point of practical war values. They could only be used in patrolling inland rivers, where neither armed vessels nor forts would be encountered. This list includes seven vessels that are classed as battleships, eight cruisers, nine torpedo boats, and then the auxiliary fleet, consisting of several small gun boats, dispatch boats, etc. This list does not embody, however, the new vessels which are now being received from English builders. A couple of years ago contracts were let for three Dreadnaughts, two scout ships, two torpedo boats and ten torpedo boat destroyers. The addition of these boats will again place Brazil in the first rank of naval powers in the southern hemisphere. The three Dreadnaughts are claimed by the Brazilians to be the most powerful of their kind that have yet been constructed. They contain some new modifications in the placing of armour and the equipment of guns. These monster warships will be named the Minas Geraes, São Paulo and the Rio de Janeiro, in honour of the three most powerful states. The first named has already been delivered, and is now in Brazilian waters. The other two will follow at intervals of a few months, and the smaller boats will all be added to the navy during the year 1910. One innovation is the placing of twelve-inch guns in the upper towers instead of the ten-inch guns which have been used heretofore. This feature, the British builders claim, gives these boats the most powerful armament of any ships afloat. Nine-inch armour has been used where seven and eight inch has generally been used. Then secondary batteries of great strength have been added in the centre line of the boats, which are also a novel feature. A speed of almost twenty-two knots an hour for these leviathans has been generated by the builders on the several trial runs. Each of the new battleships will be five hundred and forty-three feet in length with a displacement of nineteen thousand two hundred and eighty tons and a draught of twenty-five feet. The two scout ships will be named Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul after two more states. These vessels have been built for speed, and will be able to rush through the water at the rate of twenty-six and one-half knots per hour. They are now considering the advisability of adding submarine boats to the navy in order to complete the naval equipment.