Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1895 — Novel Fish-Lines. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Novel Fish-Lines.

From San Diego all along the coast northward great beds of a remarkable seaweed exist This Weed is commonly known as the giaht kelp. It lias an uncommon economic value. Its growth is peculiar. A full-grown specimen has a stem measuring. three to four hundred feet in length, clutching the bottom of the ocean, while it bears on the surface of the water an air bulb, from which a tuft upward of fifty feet long of streamer-like leave* extends, each leaf being thirty to forty feet long. The stem which anchors this floating mass, though no thicker than a common window cord, is of great strength and flexibility, and has for ages been used by the Indians for fishing lines, being first cut of the required length, varying from ten to fifteen fathoms. It is then soaked in fresh water, in a running brook, until it is nearly bleached, then stretched, rubbed to the required size, and dried over a fire. When dried it is very brittle, but when wet it is exceedingly strong, and

equal to the best flax or cotton fishing lines.

THE LYNCHING.