Fish-hook.
Fish-hooks are mentioned in the
Bible in several places, in connection with brooks, rivers, and the sea.
The first fish-hooks were made of bones or thorns, the latter being indicated by the root of the Hebrew word.
Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook (ancient version, “thorn”), or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
Canst thou put a hook into his nose?
or bore his jaw through with a thorn?
— Job XLI. 1, 2.
The latter verse bears a peculiar significance, referring to the practice of attaching a fish by a hook and cord to a stake, so as to keep it alive in the water.
The crocodile, if it be the animal referred to, would require a hook rather larger than those used by the anglers of the
Euphrates, with which river we suppose the patriarch of Uz to have been familiar.
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Fish-hooks. |
The natives of the
South Seas in the regions visited by
Magellan,
Cook, La Perouse, Anson, and others, made fish-hooks of bone, carved or neatly framed together and bound with sinews.
Such are common in the museums, along with the bone knives and cutting instruments made of shark's teeth lashed to a back piece, the primitive saw. A mother-ofpearl hook with attached tuft of hair to act as bait is known as
witte-wittee.
The old
Egyptian fish-hooks were of bronze.
See one in
Dr. Abbott's collection, New York.
Homer mentions the “barbed hooks” as used by Ulysses and his companions in
Sicily: —
“All fish and birds, and all that come to hand With barbed hooks.”
Odyssey, XII. 322
Athenaeus states (A. D. 220) that “the hooks were not forged in
Sicily, but were brought by them in their vessel.” —
Athen.
Epit., B. I. 22.
Of the
Grecian fish-hooks, some were bent around and others were straight, with a barb.
In the cut are shown a number of fish-hooks, of which
a b are two forms of a spring hook in which a mousing-piece engages the barb.
c d are two positions of the same spring hook, one set and the other sprung.
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e is intended to give the hook a square presentation, and prevent glancing of the hook in striking.
f has a tripping hook which strikes from above, and supplements the primary hook.
g has a spiral-spring shank.
h has a spring hook attached to the snood, which affords the means of attaching a bait or other hook.
i has an additional hook, which is sprung, and thus supplements the primary hook.
j has spiral vanes, so as to revolve it when drawn through the water in trolling.
k l shows two forms — on different scales — of a spring hook whose claws are thrown down upon the fish which tampers with the bait.
In making the hooks, straight wires of the proper size and length are flattened at one end, and the barb formed by a single blow with a chisel.
The point having been sharpened, the proper curve or twist is given to the hook; the soft iron is then case-hardened, to give it the stiffness and elasticity of steel, by immersion in hot animal charcoal.
The hooks are subsequently brightened by friction, and tempered.
In the hook-making machine, the wire is run from a reel into the machine, and on the other side the fish-hook drops out completed, with the exception that it must be tempe
red and
colored.
After the wire reaches a certain point, the requisite length is clipped off. The next operation barbs it; the other end is flattened.
It passes around on revolving dies, whose teeth, formed like the notched spikes of a wheel, catch it, and bear it from one operation to the next until it is smoothed and filed, when it passes between rollers that give it the prescribed twist and turn, and it drops into the receiver awaiting it.
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Fishing. |
