LITERARY NOTICES. 



421 



irregular formation, the tangled floss from 

 filatures, and raw silk more or less tangled 

 in the silk-mill. It is pure silk that can not 

 be reeled. It is prepared for spinning by 

 the most delicate processes, and when ready 

 looks like the whitest of combed fleeces, 

 and has a luster equal to that of spun glass. 

 It can be spun with perfect smoothness and 

 of any size. Spun and reeled silks are be- 

 coming more and more interchangeable in 

 the manufacture of fabrics. The two meth- 

 ods of making cheap, showy silks are either 

 by weighting slight material with dyestufif, 

 or by using spun silk. Brocades for ball- 

 and wedding-dresses are oiten of spun silk. 



American-made handkerchiefs, scarfs, 

 neckties, and milUnery goods, compete suc- 

 cessfully with the foreign supply, and keep 

 down prices for consumers. In ribbons our 

 success is complete. Only inferior ribbons 

 are now imported in any quantity. In com- 

 parison with ours the foreign ribbons are 

 overweighted and of inferior silk. The 

 designs originate in our own factories, and 

 are much admired abroad. They are made 

 upon power-looms, of which we have the 

 best in the world. In the making of trim- 

 mings and of lace, the details given in this 

 work are very interesting, but we have no 

 more space at our command. We must 

 also omit the subject of dyeing, which, 

 though the last in order, is by no means 

 the least interesting. 



The remainder of the volume is taken 

 up with statistics of the silk manufacture ; 

 and the " Seventh Annual Report of the 

 Silk Association of America," in which the 

 progress of the past year is summarized, is 

 also added. 



A Contribution to the Geology of the 

 Lower Amazonas. By Orville A. Der- 

 by, M. S. Pp. 24. 



The scientific world is chiefly indebted 

 to the late Professor Hartt for recent ac- 

 curate and detailed investigations of the 

 geological structure of eastern Brazil, and 

 of the lower Amazon and its tributaries. 

 But the untimely death of Professor Hartt, 

 with various other causes, has delayed the 

 publication of the extensive reports he had 

 prepared ; and we have in the present pam- 

 phlet a resume of the work which they cover, 

 furnished by his friend and assistant Mr. 



Derby. The author also includes the results 

 of some of his own researches in the same 

 field, made subsequently to those of Profes- 

 sor Hartt. The great valley of the Amazon, 

 according to these investigators, first ap- 

 peared in early Silurian times as a wide 

 strait between two islands or groups of isl- 

 ands, one forming the base of the Brazilian 

 plateau, and the other that of the plateau of 

 Guiana. The rise of the Andes converted 

 the western part of the strait into a basin, 

 and subsequent oscillations have determined 

 the character and succession of deposits in 

 the geological development of the region. 

 The evolution of the great valley terminated 

 with the formation of the vast flood-plain 

 which now covered with forest extends from 

 the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes. 



Primitive Manners and Customs. By 

 James A Farrer. New York : Henry 

 Holt & Co. Pp. 315. Price, $1.76, 



This book will do very well as a step- 

 ping-stone to the ethnological treatises of 

 Tylor, Lubbock, Bancroft, and Peschell, on 

 the hfe of the lower races of mankind. It 

 gives an entertaining account of the ideas, 

 habits, and peculiarities of savage and half- 

 civilized tribes, taking up in successive 

 chapters their " Myths and Beliefs," their 

 " Modes of Prayer," " Proverbs," " Moral 

 Philosophy," "Political Life," "Penal 

 Laws," " Wedding Customs," " Fairy 

 Lore," and "Comparative Folk Lore." 

 The author writes in a liberal spirit, but 

 rather avoids the controversial topics raised 

 by investigators in this field. In his intro- 

 duction he remarks : 



The vexed question, whether savage life rep- 

 reseuts a primitive or a decadent condition, 

 whether it represents what man at first every- 

 where way. or only what he may become, has 

 throuffhout the followins chapters been avoided, 

 that controversy being regarded as "laid" by 

 1 the exhaustive researches of Mr. Tylor and 

 I other writers. But, while the state of the low- 

 ' est modern savages is taken as the nearest ap- 

 proximation we have of the primitive state from 

 which mankind has risen, it is not pretended 

 that the state of any particular tribe may not be 

 one to which it has fallen. As the low position 

 of many Bushmen tribes is quite explicable by 

 their long border warfare with the Dutch, and 

 the consequent cruelties they were exposed to. 

 or as the state of many Brazilian savages may 

 be traced to similar contact with the Portugneee, 

 so any case of extreme savagery may be the re- 



