SIXTH DAT.] HOOKS. 153 



even of 30 Ibs. I will answer for its strength and 

 temper it will neither break nor bend. 



POIET. Whilst I am attaching your present, so 

 kindly made, to my line, pray tell me how these 

 hooks are made, for I know you interested yourself 

 in this subject when at Limerick. 



HAL. Most willingly. I have even made a hook 

 which, though a little inferior in form, in other 

 respects, I think, I could boast of as equal to the 

 Limerick ones. The first requisite in hook-making is 

 to find good malleable iron of the softest and purest 

 kind such as is procured from the nails of old 

 horse-shoes. This must be converted by cementation 

 with charcoal into good soft steel, and that into bars v 

 or wires of different thickness for different sized 

 hooks, and then annealed. For the larger hooks, 

 the bars must be made in such a form as to admit of 

 cutting the barbs ; and each piece, which serves for 

 two hooks, is larger at the ends, so that the bar 

 appears in the form of a double pointed spear, three, 

 four, or five inches long : the bars for the finer hooks 

 are somewhat flattened. The artist works with two 

 files, one finer than the other for giving the point 

 and polishing the hook; and he begins by making 

 the barb, taking care not to cut too deep and filing 

 on a piece of hard wood, such as box wood, with a 

 dent to receive the bar, made by the edge of the file. 



