FISHING AND FISH-HOOKS, ETC. 325 
have been made of gold; for Vulcan himself also bore 
a name equivalent to Chrysor, from the works he 
executed in that precious metal; and we are borne 
out in this last conjecture by the fact, that a golden 
fish-hook has been found buried in the sand of a small 
trout-stream in Cornwall. We will not affirm that 
this is of Phoenician origin, although a metallic ball 
found in that county may lay claim to that distant 
parentage ; and still less will we venture to say that it 
may have come from the skilful hands of Tubal Cain 
himself, who was otherwise called Hiphastus and 
Zeus Michiris, which last word signifies the “god- 
mechanic ;” but it is of skilful workmanship, and is 
preserved for its curiosity in a museum in its perhaps 
doubly native county. 
But in bringing again before the public these long- 
buried reminiscences of ancient times, we must not 
overlook the fisher-girl, whose elegant appearance was 
such as to have formed the ideal of the Goddess 
of Beauty. It is to the associations with the pur- 
suits of her family that we can trace the origin of 
the opinion that the Venus of antiquity was a pro- 
duce of the ocean—in corroboration of which there 
exists an ancient representation of her as seated on a 
sea-shell and borne above the sea by marine beings. 
This sister of Tubal Cain was called Naamah, which 
so much in sound resembles Nemaus, who was said 
to be the wife, or one of the wives, of Chronus or 
