HOW TO PREVENT DROWNING. 369 



HOW TO PKEYENT DEOWOT^^G. 



By HENEY MacCOEMAC. 



I WISH to show how drowning might, under ordinary circumstances, 

 be avoided, even in the case of persons otherwise wholly ignorant 

 of what is called the art of swimming. The numerous frightful casu- 

 alties render every working suggestion of importance, and that which 

 I here offer I venture to think is entirely available. 



When one of the inferior animals takes the water, falls or is thrown 

 in, it instantly begins to walk as it does when out of the water. But, 

 when a man who can not " swim " falls into the water, he makes a few 

 spasmodic struggles, throws up his arms, and drowns. The brute, on 

 the other hand, treads water, remains on the surface, and is virtually 

 insubmergible. In order, then, to escape di'owning, it is only neces- 

 sary to do as the brute does, and that is to tread or walk the water. 

 The brute has no advantage in regard of his relative weight, in re- 

 spect of the water, over man, and yet the man perishes while the brute 

 lives. Nevertheless, any man, any woman, any child who can walk on 

 the land may also walk in the water, just as readily as the animal does, 

 if only he will, and that without any prior instruction or drilling what- 

 ever. Throw a dog into the water, and he treads or walks the water 

 instantly, and there is no imaginable reason why a human being under 

 like circumstances should not do as the dos^ does. 



The brute, indeed, walks in the water instinctively, whereas the 

 man has to be told. The ignorance of so simple a possibility, namely, 

 the possibility of treading water, strikes me as one of the most singular 

 things in the history of man, and speaks very little indeed for his in- 

 telligence. He is, in fact, as ignorant on the subject as is the newborn 

 babe. Perhaps something is to be ascribed to the vague meaning 

 which is attached to the word sicim. When a man swims it means 

 one thing, w^hen a dog swims it means another and quite a different 

 act. The dog is wholly incapable of swimming as a man swims, but 

 nothing is more certain than that a man is caj^able of swimming, and 

 on the instant, too, as a dog swims, without any previous training or 

 instruction, and that, by S9 doing without fear or hesitancy, he will be 

 just as safe in the water as the dog is. 



The brute in the water continues to go on all-fours, and the man 

 who wishes to save his life, and can not otherwise swim, must do so 

 too, striking alternately, one two, one two, but without hurry or pre- 

 cipitation, with hand and foot, exactly as the brute does. Whether 

 he be provided with paw or hoof, the brute swims with the greatest 

 ease and buoyancy. The human being, if he will, can do so too, with 

 the further immense advantage of having a paddle-formed hand, and 

 VOL. XIX. 24 



