GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. 87 beautiful specimens of India silks. Conspicuous among them was a brocade long scarf, or Kmcob, from Benares, in which, from silver leaves placed on a dark or deep-red ground, spring gold flowers with black centres. Another brocade, of wonderful beauty and exquisite texture, is composed of a gold ground, varied or shaded by delicate shades of silk, in low tones of blue and red. The figures in these brocades are all conventionalized. Still another attractive fabric was a fine silk gauze, embroidered with gold in flattened or hammered scales. More instructive to the student of textiles than the few large and brilliant samples of fabrics was the collection, made under the direc tion of the East India Museum, of the splendid volumes, albums, and framed samples of all the textile fabrics of India, in which the won derful variety and perfection of the native silk fabrics of India are ad mirably displayed. The expense of a series of these samples (about two thousand dollars) forbids their possession by individuals; but none of our industrial or art museums should fail to have these admirable models of industrial art-work. NETHERLANDS COLONIES. Among the silk fabrics shown at the Exhibition, there was nothing surpassing the scarf-like brocades from Sumatra and Java, exhibited in the collection of the Netherlands colonies. They belong to the native princes, and were lent for the purpose of exhibition in Phila delphia. They were all of native production. A model of a rude loom was exhibited, upon which they are said to have been woven. But it seems inconceivable that such fabrics could have been produced by such rude mechanism. The ends of the scarfs are fringed with flat tassels of silver, rudely made and unpolished. The fabric is of silk of a dull red tone, shot with gold thread. The terminal borders are well marked and broad. The designs are arabesques of a geometrical construction,—no figures of flowers or animals being introduced,— but of a most subtle and ingenious character. Although the texture is nearly covered with gold, it is scarcely apparent; and the general tone of the fabric is low and subdued. This subdued effect is pro duced by the neutral tone of the silk, and the manner in which the design is made to spread all over the texture. CHINA AND JAPAN. Japan and China, although leading all other nations in the supply of raw material, and in silken embroideries unequaled, were inferior in the artistic character of their woven goods to India and Java. The plain colored satins of China were of excellent manufacture; and