GOSSAMER, a fine, thread-like, filmy substance spun by small spiders, covering stubble fields and floating in the air in clear weather, especially in the autumn; figuratively, anything light and unsubstantial. A gauzy material used f cr trimming, re sembling the "chiffon" of to-day, was formerly known as gossa mer ; and in the early Victorian period it was a term used in the hat trade, for silk hats of very light weight. It is suggested that the word is a corruption of gaze a Marie (gauze of Mary) through the legend that gossamer was originally the threads which fell away from the Virgin's shroud on her assumption.