370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



of being able to rest himself when tired by floating, a thing of which 

 the animal has no conception. Bridget Money, a poor Irish immigrant, 

 saved her own life and her three children's lives, when the steamer 

 conveying them took lire on Lake Erie, by floating herself, and making 

 them float, which simply consists in lying quite still, with the mouth 

 shut and the head thrown Avell back in the water. The dog, the horse, 

 the cow, the swine, the deer, and even the cat, all take to the water on 

 occasion, and sustain themselves j^erfectly without any prior experi- 

 ence whatever. Nothing is less difiicult, whether for man or brute, 

 than to tread water, even for the first time. I have done so often, 

 using the feet alone, or the hands alone, or the whole four, many times, 

 with perhaps one of my children on my back. Once I recollect being 

 carried a good way out to sea by the receding tide at Boulogne, but 

 regained the shore without difficulty. A drop of water once passed 

 through the rima of the glottis, and on another occasion I experienced 

 such sudden indisposition that, if I had been unable to float, it must, I 

 think, have gone hard with me. 



Men and animals are able to sustain themselves for long distances 

 in the water, and would do so much oftener were they not incapaci- 

 tated, in regard of the former at least, by sheer terror, as well as com- 

 plete ignorance of their real powers. Webb's wonderful endurance 

 will never be forgotten. But there are other instances only less re- 

 markable. Some years since, the second mate of a ship fell overboard 

 while in the act of fisting a sail. It was blowing fresh ; the time was 

 night, and the place some miles out in the stormy German Ocean. 

 The hardy fellow nevertheless managed to gain the English coast. 

 Brock, with a dozen other joilots, was plying for fares by Yarmouth ; 

 and, as the main-sheet was belayed, a sudden puflP of wind upset the 

 boat, when presently all perished except Brock himself, who, from four 

 in the afternoon of an October evening to one the next morning, swam 

 thirteen miles before he was able to hail a vessel at anchor in the offing. 

 Animals themselves are capable of swimming immense distances, al- 

 though unable to rest by the way. A dog recently swam thirty miles 

 in America in order to rejoin his master. A mule and a dog washed 

 overboard during a gale in the Bay of Biscay have been known to 

 make their way to shore. A dog swam ashore with a letter in his 

 mouth at the Cape of Good Hope. The crew of the ship to which the 

 dog belonged all perished, which they need not have done had they 

 only ventured to tread water as the dog did. As a certain ship was 

 laboring heavily in the trough of the sea, it was found needful, in 

 order to lighten the vessel, to throw some troop-horses overboard, 

 which had been taken in at Corunna. The poor things, my informant, 

 a staff-surgeon, told me, when they found themselves abandoned, faced 

 round and swam for miles after the vessel. A man on the east coast 

 of Lincolnshire saved quite a number of lives by swimming out on 

 horseback to vessels in distress. lie commonly rode an old gray 



