MAIDSTONE MUSEUM.
Maidstone is fortunate in possessing such an excellent museum, apart from London, probably the best in the south of England. Several visits have been organized for the boys, and we are indebted to the museum officials for their lucid and valuable instruction.
We have visualized the Stone Age Man and compared plaster casts of the skulls and jaws of the chimpanzee, the Heidelberg and the Piltdown man. We inspected axes and knives of the last Ice Age men. Made by chipping a flint with a harder stone and deposited in gravel beds, we deduce that their camps were near a river. Towards the end of the Ice Age man began to develop a chin. He stood six feet high, and spent his time hunting bison and reindeer.
We saw the actual drawings of elephants, bison, reindeer and men made on bones by means of chipped flints. These men used saw-like harpoons attached to poles. These are contemporary with the first lassos and bone-daggers with handles made like animals. In France the remains of 100,000 horses have been found, but not one whole skeleton can be assembled. This indicates that only certain joints were used for food.
The Bird and County sections exhibited stuffed specimens of the lyre bird, pheasants, peacocks, eagles, etc., as well as local shells, squirrels and geese.
In the Baxter room are prints by John Baxter, the first person to make a print in colour. Among the models of boats is Sir Cloudelsby Shovel's ship.
Great interest was shown in the Court Lodge Room with its pictures of Old Maidstone_ All Saints' Church, the Old Palace, Town Hall and Bridge, not to mention the collection of truncheons and keys used by criminals, a very fine set of old watches and some Chinese carvings of chess-men, rattles and beads.
The Great Hall with its ancient fire-place houses, suits of Cromwellian armour and Old Seals of Maidstone.
E. Shaw.
METHODS OF FISHING.
The most general method is float fishing, where a bite is detected by the float disappearing bencath the surface of the water. The angler strikes at this moment, thus jerking the baited hook into the upper lip of the fish.
In hand fishing the float is dispensed with, and the angler detects a bite by the jerk on his rod instead of watching the float. The fish is landed as in the first case.