Centennial Meeting. 23 



broad-breasted lugger as he thrashes through the ugly North 

 Sea and sweeps up the turbot, to the delicate silken net, the 

 plaything of the Japanese lady, all were found at the Exhibition. 

 These nets alone were a study. In Norway and Sweden a 

 curious example may be found of usages now in vogue which 

 have descended from the stone and bone age, or from prehistoric 

 times. For here may be seen nets weighted with stones, each 

 one with a hole drilled patiently through it, and nets held below 

 the water by means of split sheep-bones. If, however, such 

 primitive methods still exist in northern countries, perhaps due 

 to the poverty of the fishermen, still in Sweden and Norway 

 engines for the capture of fish may be seen admirably con- 

 structed. If there be nets floated with the core of their fir-cones 

 they use, too, hollow spheres of glass. In trawls, such as serve 

 for catching cod and haddock, certain systems of arranging 

 the hooks, and methods of carrying the line, are worthy of being 

 copied by our Gloucester and Nantucket fishermen. In both 

 the coarser and finer fishing-lines — tackle for business or 

 pleasure — the exhibitions were superb. Dilettanti fishermen in 

 the United States would be hard to please had they to look 

 beyond the contents of the cases in the Government Building, or 

 in Agricultural or in Main Hall. As to rods, such delicate con- 

 ceptions, so light, yet so strong and elastic, one could hardly 

 imagine coidd be constructed. In reels, made in the most 

 ingenious manner, no end of talent and ingenuity has been 

 lavished. In fact it looks as if a fisherman was naturally 

 inventive. Perhaps when trout do not rise, he broods over some 

 ideal reel, and his dreams find actual shape. In class 648, " Fish 

 Culture," a subject more particularly within the scope of this 

 Association, the exhibition was a fairly good one. Their sim- 

 plicity of form, and consequent cheapness of construction, 

 prevents in a measure such an exhibition from having the 



