POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



281 



fish, so as to bring it along. Another form 

 was a bow, sharpened at both ends and tied 

 around the middle ; or a disk of haliotis- 

 shell, which is still used, in connection with 

 a hook, as a trolling bait for jack or pike. 

 Some very early hooks appear to have been 

 provided with some kind of a barb. Of the 

 bone hooks of the Eskimos, one is mentioned 

 that was carved to resemble a fish ; another 

 had an iron nail for a point ; and another 

 example had the shaft of bone, the point of 

 iron, and a polished stone sinker, showing a 

 combination of the Stone, Bone, and Iron 

 ages in one specimen. The Fijians use a 

 barbless hook of mother-of-pearl for trail- 

 ing over the stern of a canoe, the glitter of 

 which attracts the fish. Some hooks from 

 the Ellis Islands are made of the iron wire 

 in which European packing-cases are bound, 

 which is bent into a curve, the end sharp- 

 ened to a point, and turned inward and 

 downward, and is lashed in such a way that 

 the strain on the hook has a tendency to 

 keep the curve in proper adjustment. One 

 hook is made of a forked limb. In Europe, 

 not many hooks are found anterior to the 

 Iron age. Among the bronze hooks from 

 the lake-dwellings of Switzerland is one very 

 closely resembling the hooks of our own time. 

 An extraordinary specimen is formed of the 

 upper mandible of an eagle, notched down 

 to the base. Hooks in the British Islands 

 have undergone but little change, except in 

 finish and quality, since the dawn of the 

 Iron period. Looking upon the subject as a 

 whole, we find a gradual development from 

 the rudest form of stone, through shell, 

 wood, bone, copper, and iron, down to the 

 beautifully tempered fine steel salmon-hook 

 of the present day ; and we also have exam- 

 ples in which these stages of progression 

 overlap one another, as shown by hooks of 

 compound manufacture, like those of shell 

 and bone, wood and bone, bone and iron, 

 and even stone, bone, and iron together. 



Cloud-bursts. — Many recent disastrous 

 floods have owed their severity to a sudden 

 down-pour of water occurring when the 

 streams of the surrounding country were 

 already filled by rain which had fallen pre- 

 viously. Such a down-pour is called a cloud- 

 burst. As explained by Prof. Ferrel, in his 

 book on The Winds, great quantities of rain 



and hail sometimes collect at a considerable 

 height in the vortex of a tornado, being 

 held up by the strong upward current of 

 air.* When the weight of the accumulated 

 mass has become great enough to over- 

 come the force of the ascending current, the 

 rain or hail pours down at one or more 

 points. The whole system may also be- 

 come weak and break up from some other 

 cause, when the same result follows. Thus, 

 if a tornado heavily charged with rain, in 

 moving over the country, strikes a mountain- 

 side, its whirling motion is checked and the 

 upward current weakened, when a cloud- 

 burst results. This is why cloud-bursts oc- 

 cur oftenest on mountain-sides. It is not to 

 be supposed that the accumulation of water 

 would be evenly distributed over all parts of 

 the ascending current, but it would collect 

 at several points ; hence, when it becomes 

 able to force its way down, it descends not 

 in drops, but in streams which often make 

 great holes in the ground. On a steep 

 mountain-side, if the stream continues for a 

 short time only, it may give rise to a land- 

 slide, or may wash out a great ravine, through 

 which the water rushes down to the valley 

 below, carrying rocks and trees along with it. 



Treatment of Lightning-Shock. — A re- 

 port of a curious case of lightning-shock, 

 with recovery, has been published by Dr. J. 

 B. Paige, of Montreal, with remarks by Drs. 

 Frank Buller and T. Wesley Mills. The sub- 

 ject, a young married woman, was struck by 

 a flash, the intensity of which was shown by 

 its effects on metallic objects to be very 

 great. It passed from a bird-cage, hanging 

 near her, to her head above the left eye, 

 thence along the ear to the central line of 

 the thorax, along the stocking suspender to 

 the top of the stocking, leaving marks on 

 both legs. Thence no trace of the current 

 was detected till the foot was reached, whence 

 it passed, leaving large rents in the stocking 

 and slipper, but no marks on the skin. The 

 force of the shock was enough to throw the 

 woman from the chair on which she was sit- 

 ting, upon and across another some two or 

 three feet distant. She was found complete- 

 ly unconscious, motionless, with muscles re- 

 laxed, left eye closed, right one open, face 

 purple, pulse imperceptible, and neither 

 heart-sounds nor respiratory murmur audi- 



