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Rh while the whole scene appears in bright contrast with the deep and almost midnight gloom that envelopes every other object."

The hook and line claim as great an antiquity as the other implements of the fisher's art. In that which has been considered the most ancient of all compositions, the Book of Job, the Almighty Lord of nature, in one of the sublime appeals wherewith He humbles his too confident servant, says, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?" In the burden denounced against Egypt by the prophet Isaiah, "they that cast angle into the brooks" are alluded to, in association with those "that spread nets upon the waters." And though the disciples of our Lord seem chiefly to have used the net, they were familiar with the hook also; for when a single fish was required to furnish the tribute-stater, Peter was commanded by his Master to "go to the sea, and cast an hook." The Egyptian monuments are not wanting in pictorial representations of this art any more than of the others already alluded to; individuals being depicted in the very act of "casting angle into the brooks."

In our times the hook is extensively used, both by savage and civilized nations. In the beautiful islands that stud, as with clusters of gems, the broad bosom of the Pacific Ocean, around whose coasts Fishes of various species are peculiarly abundant, the ingenious and enterprising inhabitants have turned their attention to fishing with great success. Many artifices have been invented by them for this purpose, some of them most