FISH-HOOKS. 



121 



by means of twine is the work of Mr. C. L. Steinhauer, Inspector of the 

 museum just mentioned. 



Fio. 178. 



Fid. 179. 



FlO. 180. 



FIGS. 178-180. Fish-hooks composed of bone and chipped stone. Greenland. 



Dr. Bessels obtained on the same occasion a very fine specimen from Green- 

 land, namely, a well-chipped piece of ti'ansparent bluish-gray chalcedony, which 

 apparently formed, or was designed to form, a part of a fish-hook of the kind 

 here noticed. Pig. 180 shows its appearance. This object is triangular in the 

 cross-section, the portion not seen in the illustration being flat and but little 

 chipped. 



It is doubtful whether flint was thus prepared by the former inhabitants of 

 the present United States, to serve in the construction of fish-hooks, for not a 

 single specimen of the required form is to be found among the thousands of flint 

 objects in the National Museum. Articles of this description, however, appear 

 to occur in Germany, and a number of specimens derived from the Island of 

 Riigen, and thought to belong to this class, were presented for inspection by Mr. 

 Rosenberg during the exhibition of prehistoric German relics, held at Berlin in 

 1880. To judge from the description, they are not brought into a definite shape 

 by chipping, but are simply flakes (Spleisse) of suitable form, some of them but 

 little modified for the attachment to a shank. Their size being considerable, they 

 could only have served in the construction of hooks designed to catch the large 

 species of fish.* 



* (Voss) : Katalog der Ausstellung prahistorischcr und anthropologischer Funde Deutschlands ; p. 363. 



Hie 



