An interesting account is given of the culture of the Araucanians, the desperate warriors who resisted the Spanish invaders long after the rest of the tribes of Chile had submitted to the conquerors. The status of the women of this tribe, and of the peculiar marriage customs is especially interesting; so is the account of the women of the Gauchos whose preeminent claim to notice in a history of woman is that they are "the most unmoral women on the face of the earth." There is also a brief but none the less informing account of the women of the greatest of South American countries, Brazil, which better than any other southern republic exhibits the advance made in the position and influence of woman in national progress and well-being. The record of individual women in this section is scanty; but the general outline of the growth of feminine influence in recent times is noted. Woman in politics, in revolutionary movements, and, still more notably, woman in the social and educational progress that is now making the best history of South America the author discriminatingly presents to the reader, with individual mention of foremost leaders of thought. Of the American woman proper, the author follows the steps from settlement days when the principles were to be tested which moved the Pilgrims to self-exile. Her influence and her initiative, illustrated by characteristic story and narrative of environment, are presented with precision and clearness so that the reader can grasp the subtle power exercised by woman during the formative period. Similarly are the women of the great colony to the South considered, and the points of divergence and their causes and results noted as compared with the northern colony. The typical American woman is remarkable among women not merely as a type, but also because she is the evolution of only a few generations. She is without a traditional culture, but, as the author asserts, she inherited the cultures of all the nations. Beginning with the basic culture of the mother country she has grafted thereon the native branches which have sprung from her environment and has absorbed such mental and temperamental characteristics of introduced nationalities as have best suited her conditions, and from all together she has created the American type of womanhood, whose particular characteristic is to _do_. In the women of these two mother settlements are found the "foundations and matrices of American femininity." So the causes and growth of the American type of womanhood are shown in its evolutionary processes therein along lines mainly parallel until the need of resistance to the mother country brings about a near approach to a national type. The spread of woman's influence to the constantly extending frontier and the new settlements is broadly but clearly sketched and the potency of the foreign settlers considered.