BACKSCRATCHER  , a

long slender rod of wood, whalebone, tortoiseshell, horn or cane, with a carved human hand, usually of ivory, mounted at the extremity . Its name suggests the primary use of the implement, but little is known of its history, and it was unquestionably also employed as a kind of rake to keep in order the huge " heads " of powdered hair worn by ladies during a considerable portion of the 18th and the early part of the loth centuries . The backscratcher varies in length from 12 to 20 in., and the more elaborate examples,which were occasionally hung from the waist, are silver-mounted, and in rare instances the ivory fingers bear carved rings . The hand is sometimes outstretched, and sometimes the fingers are flexed; the modelling is frequently good, the fingers delicately formed and the nails well defined . As a rule the rod is finished off with a knob . The hand was now and again replaced by a rake or a bird's claw . The hand was indifferently dexter or sinister, but the Chinese variety usually bears a right hand . Like most of the obsolete appliances of daily life, the backscratcher, or scratch-back, as it is sometimes called, has become scarce, and it is one of the innumerable objects which attract the attention of the modern collector . BACK'S RIVER (Thlewechodyelh, or "Great Fish"), a river in Mackenzie and Keewatin districts, Canada, rising in Sussex lake, a small body of water in 1o8° 2o' W. and 64° 25' N., and flowing with a very tortuous course N.E. to an inlet of the Arctic Ocean, passing through several large lake-expansions—Pelly, Garry, MacDougall and Franklin . Like the Coppermine, the only other large river of this part of Canada, it is rendered unnavigable by a succession of rapids and rocks . It was discovered and explored by Sir George Back in 1834 . Its total length is 56o m .