the Lake
Erie, Bowling Green & Napoleon electric lines, the former extending from
Toledo to Dayton. It is situated in a rich agricultural region which
abounds in oil and natural gas. Many of the residences and business
places of Bowling Green are heated by a privately owned central
hot-water heating plant. Among the manufactures are cut glass, stoves
and ranges, kitchen furniture, guns, thread-cutting machines, brooms and
agricultural implements. Bowling Green was first settled in 1832, was
incorporated as a town in 1855, and became a city in 1904.

BOWLS,

History.

the oldest British outdoor pastime, next to archery, still in vogue. It
has been traced certainly to the 13th, and conjecturally to the 12th
century. William Fitzstephen (d. about 1190), in his biography of Thomas
Becket, gives a graphic sketch of the London of his day and, writing of
the summer amusements of the young men, says that on holidays they were
"exercised in Leaping, Shooting. Wrestling, Casting of Stones [_in jactu
lapidum_], and Throwing of Javelins fitted with Loops for the Purpose,
which they strive to fling before the Mark; they also use Bucklers, like
fighting Men." It is commonly supposed that by _jactus lapidum_
Fitzstephen meant the game of bowls, but though it is possible that
round stones may sometimes have been employed in an early variety of the
game-and there is a record of iron bowls being used, though at a much
later date, on festive occasions at Nairn,--nevertheless the inference
seems unwarranted. The _jactus lapidum_ of which he speaks was probably
more akin to the modern "putting the weight," once even called "putting
the stone." It is beyond dispute, however, that the game, at any rate in
a rudimentary form, was played in the 13th century. A MS. of that period
in the royal library, Windsor (No. 20, E iv.), contains a drawing
representing two players aiming at a small cone instead of an
earthenware ball or jack. Another MS. of the same century has a
picture--crude, but spirited--which brings us into close touch with the
existing game. Three figures are introduced and a jack. The first
player's bowl has come to rest just in front of the jack; the second has
delivered his bowl and is following after it with one of those eccentric
contortions still not unusual on modern greens, the first player
meanwhile making a repressive gesture with his hand, as if to urge the
bowl to stop short of his own; the third player is depi