Monazite sands lie all along the southerly shores of Bahia, extending into Espirito Santo; their peculiar glow and lustre was first noticed by an Englishman, John Gordon, who had samples examined and found that they contained thorium, used in making incandescent gas mantles; he was in the shipping business in Brazil, and had no difficulty in thenceforth sending large quantities of the precious sands abroad, as ballast; the story goes that only by an accident was the fact revealed to the authorities that the sands were valuable above the ballast of most vessels, after some years. Duties were put on, and eventually exports slumped. The largest amount officially sent abroad in one year was 2,114 tons, 1908, with a value of 609 contos of reis. In 1915 only 439 tons were exported, all to the United States. These three meagre items, precious stones, manganese and monazite sands, complete the 1915 official mining exports of a great mineral country. Probably increases will be shown for the year 1916, for, in addition to manganese increases, there has been great stimulation of coal mining in the States of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catharina and Paraná. More than one Brazilian railway, exasperated at the prices demanded for foreign coal, has been using native coal and helping in its production, and during the latter part of 1916 experimental shipments were made to the Argentine. Results are said to be good, but a little caution must be used before serious claims are made concerning the existence of very extensive deposits of fine hard steam coal. In any case the production of useful coal is a blessing to the east coast of South America, devoid as this region has been up to the present of any source of reliable _carvão de pedra_; every ton has been imported, chiefly from Wales but latterly from North America. Chile, on the other side of the Andes, has been mining coal for years, but the quality is not satisfactory for all purposes, and supplies have been supplemented from Australia in normal times. Brazil has, it is known, important deposits of nickel, copper, lead, mica, platinum, wolfram, and many other minerals, but there has been no real attempt at operations, and until prospecting is systematically undertaken and money put into good equipment, Brazil cannot take her place as a great mineral producing country. She has the minerals, but she needs roads to get them out, and favourable laws to encourage mining development, as well as abolition of strangulating taxes. With intelligent assistance, Brazil’s manganese should be able at the close of the European War to compete with that of Russia, and her monazite with that of Travancore (India), aside from the other rich deposits. BRAZILIAN MANUFACTURES