THE SPLIT BAMBOO ROD 141 



" In the revised and extended edition of the 

 'Book of the Black Bass' (1904), there is 

 much additional information on the subject, 

 and the date of Phillipe's first rods is estab- 

 lished as 1845 on the testimony of contempo- 

 raneous fellow-townsmen, friends, and fishing 

 companions. From the evidence now in my 

 possession, Phillipe was undoubtedly, indubi- 

 tably, and manifestly the first to make a four- 

 strip or six-strip split bamboo rod. Some of 

 his earliest rods were made with an ash butt 

 and the middle and top piece of four-strip split 

 bamboo, one of which is now in my possession, 

 and was made some seventy years ago. It is 

 1 1 feet 4 inches in length, and weighs scant 8 

 ounces. It is well balanced and as perfect in 

 action as any modern rod. 



" The rods shown at the 1851 Fisheries 

 Exhibition by English rodmakers were all 

 three-strip split cane rods, as was also the rod 

 mentioned by Mitchell as made for Mr. James 

 Stevens by Blacker of London in 1852. The 

 late Prof. Alfred M. Mayer of the Stevens 

 Institute of Technology, and editor of the 

 Century Company's ' Sport With Rod and 

 Gun,' says of this rod: ' This rod is of three 

 sections, with the enamel on the outside, and 

 was made in 1852, while Mr. Stevens was in 



