Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/293

Rh fish, so as to bring it along. Another form was a bow, sharpened at both ends and tied around the middle; or a disk of haliotis shell, which is still used, in connection with a hook, as a trolling bait for jack or pike. Some very early hooks appear to have been provided with some kind of a barb. Of the bone hooks of the Eskimos, one is mentioned that was carved to resemble a fish; another had an iron nail for a point; and another example had the shaft of bone, the point of iron, and a polished stone sinker, showing a combination of the Stone, Bone, and Iron ages in one specimen. The Fijians use a barbless hook of mother-of-pearl for trailing over the stern of a canoe, the glitter of which attracts the fish. Some hooks from the Ellis Islands are made of the iron wire in which European packing-cases are bound, which is bent into a curve, the end sharpened to a point, and turned inward and downward, and is lashed in such a way that the strain on the hook has a tendency to keep the curve in proper adjustment. One hook is made of a forked limb. In Europe, not many hooks are found anterior to the Iron age. Among the bronze hooks from the lake-dwellings of Switzerland is one very closely resembling the hooks of our own time. An extraordinary specimen is formed of the upper mandible of an eagle, notched down to the base. Hooks in the British Islands have undergone but little change, except in finish and quality, since the dawn of the Iron period. Looking upon the subject as a whole, we find a gradual development from the rudest form of stone, through shell, wood, bone, copper, and iron, down to the beautifully tempered fine steel salmon-hook of the present day; and we also have examples in which these stages of progression overlap one another, as shown by hooks of compound manufacture, like those of shell and bone, wood and bone, bone and iron, and even stone, bone, and iron together.

Cloud-bursts.—Many recent disastrous floods have owed their severity to a sudden down-pour of water occurring when the streams of the surrounding country were already filled by rain which had fallen previously. Such a down-pour is called a cloudburst. As explained by Prof. Ferrel, in his book on The Winds, great quantities of rain and hail sometimes collect at a considerable height in the vortex of a tornado, being held up by the strong upward current of air.* When the weight of the accumulated mass has become great enough to overcome the force of the ascending current, the rain or hail pours down at one or more points. The whole system may also become weak and break up from some other cause, when the same result follows. Thus, if a tornado heavily charged with rain, in moving over the country, strikes a mountainside, its whirling motion is checked and the upward current weakened, when a cloudburst results. This is why cloud-bursts occur oftenest on mountain-sides. It is not to be supposed that the accumulation of water would be evenly distributed over all parts of the ascending current, but it would collect at several points; hence, when it becomes able to force its way down, it descends not in drops, but in streams which often make great holes in the ground. On a steep mountain-side, if the stream continues for a short time only, it may give rise to a landslide, or may wash out a great ravine, through which the water rushes down to the valley below, carrying rocks and trees along with it.

Treatment of Lightning-Shock.—A report of a curious case of lightning-shock, with recovery, has been published by Dr. J. B. Paige, of Montreal, with remarks by Drs. Frank Buller and T. Wesley Mills. The subject, a young married woman, was struck by a flash, the intensity of which was shown by its effects on metallic objects to be very great. It passed from a bird-cage, hanging near her, to her head above the left eye, thence along the ear to the central line of the thorax, along the stocking suspender to the top of the stocking, leaving marks on both legs. Thence no trace of the current was detected till the foot was reached, whence it passed, leaving large rents in the stocking and slipper, but no marks on the skin. The force of the shock was enough to throw the woman from the chair on which she was sitting, upon and across another some two or three feet distant. She was found completely unconscious, motionless, with muscles relaxed, left eye closed, right one open, face purple, pulse imperceptible, and neither heart-sounds nor respiratory murmur