SIXTH DAY.] 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 

 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. 



