The Split Bamboo Rod. 60 1 



All the Calcutta bamboo imported into this country or England 

 is burned, before being exported, with a red-hot iron of elliptic form 

 and from one-half to three-quarters of an inch wide, which destroys 

 the strongest fiber immediately in contact with the enamel, and 

 loosens the latter, so that, by estimate, about one-fifth of the enamel 

 comes off in the working. As you cannot retain it all on the rod, 

 it is just as strong if all the enamel is taken off; in fact, the 

 enamel, or silex, on the outside of the bamboo only stiffens, but 

 does not strengthen it. Glass is melted silex, and no one would 

 think a rod was strengthened by giving it a coat of silex varnish. 



It will be seen from the foregoing that in 1848 Ephemera's 

 44 Hand-book on Angling," second edition, mentions the complete three- 

 section split bamboo rod as being in use in England, and that the 

 first edition of this book, published in 1844, has reference to the 

 same rod. In 185 1, rods of similar make were exhibited at the 

 Crystal Palace by three manufacturers, and two other writers on 

 angling mention these rods in their books, published in 1855 an d 

 1856. The earliest date of manufacture in America of the complete 

 split bamboo rod is that of i860, when Mr. Green, of Newark, N. J., 

 made a few rods of this character. 



William Mitchell. 



Since reading the interesting and valuable article by my old 

 friend, Mr. William Mitchell, • * * I have consulted a 

 modest angling library (which has always been at his service, as he 

 well knows), and found that it contains both the works which he was 

 desirous of seeing. 



The first edition of the " Hand-book of Angling," by "Ephe- 

 mera" (Edward Fitzgibbon), was published in 1847, not 1844, and 

 it was owing to this mistake as to date, no doubt, that it was not to 

 be found "in the Lenox or Astor library, or in any private library." 



Slacker's first edition (1842) I dismiss from the discussion, as it 

 contains no allusion to the construction of split bamboo, or to any 

 kind of rod, in fact, but is devoted to the "Art of angling and com- 

 plete s\st«m of fly-making and dyeing of colors." 



Mr. Fitzgibbon, in the first edition of his work, pp. 278 et set/., in 

 speaking of the construction of a salmon rod, says that he consulted 



