The advance in the status of women in Chile was doubtless largely due to the influence of Mercedes Marin del Solar, whose writings first extorted from Spanish masculinity a reluctant confession that a woman might achieve deserved fame in paths hitherto thought to be sacred to the feet of men. Born in 1804, when among her countrymen women were considered mere child-bearers, she devoted her life to proving that her sex possessed the qualities requisite for high attainment in literary matters as well as in the graver concerns of life; and she won ample success. Even with the scant opportunities for obtaining an education which were then stingily meted out to women, Señora Solar managed to develop her natural culture; and while still a young woman she became an ardent public advocate for the higher education of her sex. She did not live to see her efforts crowned with full fruition; but they were effectual at last. It is, however, chiefly for her literary accomplishments that she will live in memory; her ode on the death of Don Diego Portales remains a standard, and her _Ode to Washington_, inspired by the interest taken by its author in the American Civil War, which was then raging, shows breadth of thought and fine philosophical powers, while it is of especial interest to us because of its subject and aim. Señora Solar was of the earlier age of Chilean feminine culture and was greatly hampered by the conditions existing in her period of largest activities; but a later writer, Rosario Orrego de Uribe, has carried on the work so admirably begun and has added to its range and effect. For years Señora Orrego de Uribe was at the head of a large journal, the _Revista de Valparaiso_, and thus found a suitable medium for the expression of her theories. Moreover, as a novelist she has attained high rank, and she has written poetry which is above the average. Her influence has been steadily for the emancipation and advancement of her sex, and her work is not yet finished, though she has seen the cause she embraced with such enthusiasm prosper even beyond the highest hopes of its first advocates. Among the notable women of Chile may also be mentioned the name of Juana Ross de Edwards. As the name implies, she is of Anglo-Saxon descent and has strengthened the blood by marriage. She is noted as a philanthropist, giving largely and wisely to worthy objects, and she is so admittedly a power in the land that she was one of the first to suffer banishment when Balmaceda came into power in 1891. The powerful dictator feared the influence of Señora Edwards more than the plots of the most virulent of his masculine foes.