620 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Mr. J. Scott Russell has published in The London Practical 

 Mechanics' Journal the result which his methods and formula 

 give for a boat of the same dimensions, if the boat were consid- 

 ered of a wave form. The work done in this case beino;, per man 

 per minute, 3.59 foot-tons. The editor of 2'he London Practical 

 Meclianics^ Journal says, the result showing the great excess of 

 labor for the unit in time, over and above that of an average day's 

 work, is by no means startling, especially if reliance is placed 

 upon the experiments of the late Mr. Robertson Buchanan, show- 

 ing that in the following modes of applying muscular effort, row- 

 inor is the most advantageous of all others iu the ratio of the 

 annexed numbers : 



Pumping 100. Bell-ringing 225. 



Turnino- winch 1G7. Rowing 248. 



. The value of the investigation causes us the rather t© desire that 

 the actual resistance to traction of the Oxford race-boat, loaded as 

 ■with her crew and at her race speed, should be experimentally 

 ascertained. A good deal of valuable information but very little 

 known iu England, on the sul)jcct of human force, and the rela- 

 tion between its absolute force or energy, iind the velocity with 

 ■which it is given forth and the time of its endurance, Avill be 

 found in Bougner "Manoeuvres des Vesseaux," and in Euler's 

 Memoirs in the Transactions of the affairs of St. Petersburg, New 

 Series, Vols. III. and VIII., in the last of which he examines the 

 animal mechanics of rowing. Schultz's experiments in the Me- 

 moirs of the Academy of Berlin for 1783, also are probably the 

 most complete that have ever been made upon human effort, and 

 especially in reference to the relation (for a given form of muscu- 

 lar exertion), between height, weight and absolute force in the 

 man, and the result iu work. This applies, in a very direct way, 

 to the much debated question among oarsmen, as to what average 

 size and weight of men in an eight-oar boat ought cccteris ])aribus, 

 to give the best results of speed. The Oxford view is, we believe, 

 that heavy men (eleven to twelve stone) give the best results, and 

 this seems supported by the facts of their actual weights of crews 

 and their general success. With heavy men especially, but, iu 

 fact, with men of all weights, there can be scarcely a doubt but 

 that the proper proportioning the rate of stroke, so that the trunk 

 of each man, as he oscillates, shall move as a pendulum pivoted 

 on the hip joints, and, therefore, with the least effort,- and the 



