322 FISHING GOSSIP. 



pursuit, and we believe also with a far higher degree 

 of benefit to the world at large. The arts then in- 

 vented, as we shall see, were highly valued in many 

 successive generations, and have never ceased to be 

 employed down to our own times. 



The natural historian Pliny knew nothing of the 

 remotest history of the world ; but he records a tradi- 

 tion which he must have copied from some ancient 

 writer whose works are lost (b. iii. c. 5, 7 ; b. v. c. 13 ; 

 b. vii. c. 56), that Joppa had been a city situated on 

 the coast of the sea before the date of the great flood 

 that was spread over the earth ; and that the west 

 border of Syria at that remote date was a coast of the 

 sea, is more distinctly affirmed by the Phoenician his- 

 torian Sanchoniatho, to whose narrative we are in- 

 debted for further interesting particulars. 



The earliest inventions and amusements in the 

 arts of life, as also in elegant improvements, were by 

 the reprobate son of Adam and his near descendants ; 

 and perhaps it was as combining both these characters 

 that we are told how a boat was first formed, which 

 was for the pursuit of fishing, by the father of Vul- 

 can, and who was called, by a Greek accommoda- 

 tion with such as were more ancient and of another 

 lineage, Halieus a name which fixes his employment 

 as being conducted on the sea, where his first attempt 

 at seamanship was only such as is practised in our 

 own times by men possessing the lowest amount of skill 



