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 purposes; the old mint; the hospital for aged men and women (beginning of 17th century); the weigh-house (1609); the town hall, in which the states of West Friesland formerly met; and the old court-house, which dates from the beginning of the 17th century, though parts of it are older, containing a modern museum and some early portraits. There are also various charitable and educational institutions, Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and a synagogue. The extensive foreign commerce which Hoorn carried on in the 16th and 17th centuries has almost entirely vanished, but there is still a considerable trade with other parts of the Netherlands, especially in cheese and cattle. The chief industries include gold and silver work, and there are also tobacco factories, saw-mills and some small boat-building yards, a considerable number of vessels being engaged in the Zuider Zee fisheries.

Hoorn, latinized as Horna or Hornum, has existed at least from the first part of the 14th century, as it is mentioned in a document of the year 1311, five years earlier than the date usually assigned for its foundation. In 1356 it received municipal privileges from Count William V. of Holland, and in 1426 it was surrounded with walls. It was at Hoorn in 1416 that the first great net was made for the herring fishery, an industry which long proved an abundant source of wealth to the town. During the 15th century Hoorn shared in the troubles occasioned by the different contending factions; in 1569 the Spanish forces entered the town; but in 1572 it cast in its lot with the states of the Netherlands. In the 16th century it was a commercial centre, important for its trade, fisheries and breweries. A company of commerce and navigation was formed at Hoorn in 1720, and the admiralty offices and storehouses remained here until their removal to Medemblik in 1795. The English under Sir Ralph Abercromby took possession of the town in 1799, and in 1811 it suffered severely from the French. Among the celebrities of Hoorn are William Schouten, who discovered in 1616 the passage round Cape Horn, or Hoorn, as he named it in honour of his birthplace; Abel Janszoon Tasman, whose fame is associated with Tasmania; and Jan Pietersz Coen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies.

 HOOSICK FALLS, a village of Rensselaer county, New York, U.S.A., in the township of Hoosick, 27 m. N.E. of Troy, on the Hoosick river. Pop. of the village (1890) 7014; (1900) 5671, of whom 1092 were foreign-born; (1905) 5251; (1910) 5532; of the township (1900) 8631; (1910) 8315. Hoosick Falls is served by the Boston & Maine Railroad, and is connected by electric railway with Bennington, Vermont, about 8 m. E. The falls of the Hoosick river furnish water-power for the manufacture of agricultural machinery by the Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machine Co., which dates from 1866, the business having been started in 1852 by Walter Abbott Wood (1815–1892), who was a Republican representative in Congress in 1879–1883. Other manufactures are knit goods, shirts and collars and paper-making machinery. Hoosick Falls was settled about 1688 by Dutch settlers—settlers from Connecticut and Massachusetts came after 1763—and it was first incorporated in 1827. Three miles N.E. of the village, at Walloomsac, in the township of Hoosick, the battle of Bennington was fought, on the 16th of August 1777.

 HOP (Ger. Hopfen, Fr. houblon), Humulus Lupulus, L., an herbaceous twining plant, belonging to the natural order Cannabinaceae, which is by some botanists included in the larger group called Urticaceae by Endlicher. It is of common occurrence in hedges and thickets in the southern counties of England, but is believed not to be native in Scotland. On the European continent it is distributed from Greece to Scandinavia, and extends through the Caucasus and Central Asia to the Altai Mountains. It is common, but doubtfully indigenous, in the northern and western states of North America, and has been introduced into Brazil, Australia and the Himalayas.

It is a perennial plant, producing annually several long twining roughish striated stems, which twist from left to right, are often 15 to 20 ft. long and climb freely over hedges and bushes. The roughness of stem and leaves is due to lines of strong hooked hairs, which help the plant to cling to its support. The leaves are stalked, opposite, 3-5 lobed, and coarsely serrate, and bear a general resemblance to those of the vine, but are, as well as the whole plant, rough to the touch; the upper leaves are sometimes scarcely divided, or quite entire. The stipules are between the leaf-stalks, each consisting of two lateral ones united, or rarely with the tips free. The male and female flowers are produced on distinct plants. The male inflorescence (fig. 1, A) forms a panicle; the flowers consist of a small greenish five-parted perianth (a) enclosing five stamens, whose anthers (b) open by terminal slits. The female inflorescence (fig. 1, B) is less conspicuous in the young state. The catkin or strobile consists of a number of small acute bracts, with two sessile ovaries at their base, each subtended by a rounded bractlet (c). Both the bracts and bractlets enlarge greatly during the development of the ovary, and form, when fully grown, the membranous scales of the strobile (fig. 2, a); they are known as “petals” by hop-growers. The bracts can then only be distinguished from the bractlets by being rather more acute and more strongly veined. The perianth (fig. 1, d) is short, cup-shaped, undivided and closely applied to the ovary, which it ultimately encloses. In the young strobile the two purple hairy styles (e) of each ovary project beyond the bracts. The ovary contains a single ovule (fig. 1. f) which becomes in the fruit an exalbuminous seed, containing a spirally-coiled embryo (fig. 2, b). The light dusty pollen is carried by the wind from the male to the female flowers.

The ovary and the base of the bracts are covered with a yellowish powder, consisting of minute sessile grains, called lupulin or lupulinic glands. These glands (fig. 2, c) are from to in. in diameter, like flattened subovate little saucers in shape, and attached to a short pedicel. The upper or hemispherical portion bears a delicate continuous membrane, the cuticle, which becomes raised by the secretion beneath it of the yellowish lupulin. The stalk is not perceptible in the gland as found in commerce. When fresh the gland is seen to be filled with a yellowish or dark brown liquid; this on drying contracts in bulk and forms a central mass. It is to these lupulinic glands that the medicinal properties of the hop are chiefly due. By careful sifting about 1 oz. may be obtained from 1 ℔ of hops, but the East Kent variety is said to yield more than the Sussex hops.