Like I've said in some other posts, it's been a LONG time since I've been under the hood of one of these.
  I don't remember ever seeing one of these before, but my lower heater hose has a canister .  What on earth is this for?  the heater hose goes into the canister, then a hose comes out of the canister and goes to the bottom of the radiator.
 It looks like crap.  What is it?

Is there and electrical cord or a place where there was a cord? It sure looks like a tank heater to warm up the engine to start in cold weather. Up here in the great white north we used them on most everything, only way to start a carbureted engine at -20°F.

Yeah, that car saw some cold temps in it's day to have one of those. Alaskan cars have block heaters, fuel heaters, oil pan heaters & battery blankets to keep them running. Everywhere you park you plug your car in to heat everything. I knew a guy that worked on the Alaska pipeline & his Ford truck had 110 volt cords everywhere plus a gasoline fired heater bolted to the tranny hump.