=The Guianas.=--The surface conditions and climate of the Guianas resemble those of Venezuela. The native products are also much the same, but good business organization has made the countries bearing the general name highly productive. For the greater part, the coast-plain is the region of cultivation. Sugar is still the most important crop; but on account of the fierce competition of beet-sugar, on many of the plantations cane-sugar cultivation is unprofitable and has been abandoned for that of rice, cacao, and tobacco. Great Britain, Holland, and France possess the country. The divisions are known respectively as British Guiana, Surinam, and Cayenne, and the trade of each accrues to the mother-country. British Guiana is noted quite as much for its gold-fields on the Venezuelan border (Cuyuni River) as for its vegetable products. _Georgetown_, better known by the name of the surrounding district, _Demerara_, is the focal point of business. _New Amsterdam_ is also a port of considerable trade. The gold-mining interests centre at _Bartica_. [Illustration: A CACAO PLANTATION] [Illustration: PREPARING THE BEANS FOR SHIPMENT] [Illustration: CACAO-TREE] [Illustration: MAKING CHOCOLATE] Surinam, in addition to its export of vegetable products, contains rich gold-mines, and these contribute a considerable revenue. _Paramaribo_ is the port and centre of trade. Phosphates and gold are among the important exports of Cayenne, whose port bears the same name. =Brazil.=--This state, nearly the size of the United States, comprises about half the area of South America. Much of it, including the greater part of the Amazon River basin, is unfit for the growth of food-stuffs. There are three regions of production. The Amazon forests yield the greater part of the world's rubber supply. The middle coast region has various agricultural products, of which cotton and cane-sugar are the most important. From the southern region comes two-thirds of the world's coffee-crop. There are productive gold-mines in the state of Minas Geraes, but this region is best known for the "old mine" diamonds, the finest produced. The Amazon rubber-crop includes not only the crude gum obtained in Brazil, but a considerable part, if not the most, of the crop from the surrounding states. The bifurcating Cassiquiare, which flows both into Amazonian and Orinocan waters, drains a very large area of forest which yields the best rubber known. The yield of 1901 aggregated about one hundred and thirty million pounds, of which about one-half was sold in the United States, one-third in Liverpool, and the rest mainly in Antwerp and Le Havre. The price of rubber is fixed in New York and London.