196 



PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



man was provided with two strong cedar-poles, a clothes-line, a number of 

 hooks on short lines, and a squai'e slab of stone attached to about twenty feet 

 of rope for an anchor. This stone weia'hed fifteen pounds or more, and its 

 form was modified only sufficiently to secure the crosswise attachment of the 

 rope. The poles were stuck in the mud on either side of the channel, and the 

 clothes-line stretched between. The baited hooks were distributed along the line 

 at convenient distances, and the dug-out anchored to await results. Shortly a 

 tugging at the line would indicate business, and the stern of the canoe would be 

 poled to the vicinity of the excited hook. The fish secured and the hook re- 

 baited, the sportsman lay by for a new conquest. I am quite sure anchor-stones 

 were employed also in the little boats used on plantations near salt water, to 

 catch oysters for home consumption." 



The 'New England fishermen, also, in order to avoid expenses, replace 

 anchors by stones, as shown in the following examples. 



Fig. 343. — " Underrunning rock." Massachusetts. (.54346). 



I represent in Fig. 343 one of the so-called " underrunning rocks," which 

 are attached to the end of trawl-lines, to sink them to the bottom. The object 

 hero figured is a granite boulder of an ovoid form, showing no other alteration 

 by art than a drilled hole for receiving a grooved wooden pin to which the rope 

 is attached. Obtained at Gloucester, Massachusetts. 



Fig. 344 presents the form of a New England " killick," used as an anchor 



