734 



SKATE. 



did in later times, the last regiment of Norwegian 



Skielobere having been discontinued about 1860. 



Samuel Pepys (1662) speaks of the use of 



in the other, and was followed. J>y a large black 

 cat." This Lapp easily kept up with the trav- 

 eler's sledges at the alleged rate, that is, of 



"skeates" as a "very pretty art" (Griffin's eighteen milea an hour. "These skates," he 

 memoirs of Samuel Pepys, London, 1825). In continues, " are as broad as the foot, but six or 

 John Evelyn's memoirs (London, 1818), skat- eight feet long and pointed before. They are 

 ing is mentioned as practiced on the Thames as covered with seal-skin, so that the smooth 

 early as 1662. Jonathan Swift wrote to Esther grain of the hair turns backward toward the 



2. 



3. 3. 



NOKWEGIAN SKEES OB SNOW-SKATES. 1. PLAN. 2. SIDE. 3, 3. SECTIONS AT FOOT-BEST. 



Johnson in. 1711: "The canal and Kosamond's 

 Pond are full of rabble sliding and with skates, 

 if you know what those are." (See Foster's 

 "Life of Jonathan Swift," London, 1875.) Evi- 

 dently, in the early part of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury skating was not familiar to the English. 



The first English patent for a skating inven- 

 tion was to J. IT. Savigny, Dec. 4, 1784, since 

 which time nearly 400 specifications have been 

 enrolled in Great Britain, while in the United 

 States, up to the end of January, 1885, there 

 had been 336 patents issued for " skates " and 

 206 for roller-skates. 



Chronologically, skating may be divided in- 

 to: 1, snow-skating, namely, the use of wood- 

 en runners or " skees " ; 2, blunt-skating with 

 bones, or strips of hard wood; 3, sharp-skat- 

 ing, which introduces the iron or steel blade ; 

 and 4, roller-skating, where revolving wheels 

 take the place of runners. This arrangement 

 is, of course, to some extent guess-work, for, 

 as has been said, the origin of snow and blunt 

 skating dates back beyond known records, but 

 it is not unsafe to assume that devices to fa- 

 cilitate travel over snow were invented before 

 the necessarily more elaborate contrivances for 

 traversing ice. The Scandinavian skee is some- 

 times referred to as a snow-shoe, but it must 

 not be confounded with the snow-shoe of the 

 American Indians, which is adapted for walk- 

 ing or running on the snow surface, not for 

 sliding. "The Ileimskringla" ("Chronicle of 

 the Kings of Norway," date not known), by 

 Snorri Sturluson, translated from the Ice- 

 landic by Saul Lang, London, Longmans, 

 1844, says: "Snow-scates are strips of light 

 wood about five feet long, with a leather loop 

 in the middle, into which the foot is thrust, 

 and the expert scater shuffles along at a great 

 rate, especially down a slope." 



Erick Pontoppidan (1760) thus describes a 

 Laplander: "His skates, which were made of 

 the bark of the tree, were seven feet and a 

 half long, four fingers broad, and flat on the 

 bottom, ... a large quiver at his back, and 

 a dark [skating-staff ?] in one hand and a bow 



heels." "With these snow-skates "they slide 

 about, on the snow as well as they can upon 

 the ice, and faster than any horse can go." 



It is singular that the skee has not come 

 more generally into use in the Northern Unit- 

 ed States, for it can readily be used on good 

 sleighing-roads as well as on a moderately firm 

 crust, and it is said that fifty or sixty miles a 

 day is not an uncommon feat in Sweden and 

 Norway. So far as is known, its only general 

 use in this country is in the California mount- 

 ains, where it was introduced probably 

 Norwegian miners about 1849-'50, and has at 

 tained considerable popularity both for pi 

 poses of travel and as a means of reert 

 ation. 



Snow-skates vary in minor details, according 

 to individual preference. For a boy, four or 

 five feet in length is enough, while for men 

 they are sometimes ten or twelve feet long. 

 The width is given from 2| inches to 7 inches, 

 and the thickness 1 inch to 1| inch at the 

 foot -rest, which point is usually somewhat 

 nearer the heel than the toe, so as to cause re- 

 sistance to backward slipping. The toe turns 

 up to a height of about four inches, and the 

 whole tapers very slightly fore and aft, coming 

 to a point at the toe in the best-made examples, 

 and rounded off at the heel. On top it is also 

 beveled, and thinned to half an inch thick at 

 toe and heel ; on the under side a wide, shal- 

 low groove is cut to prevent slipping sidewise. 

 The strap is merely a loop through which the 

 foot is thrust as far as the ball of the great-toe, 

 and another strap passes loosely behind the 

 heel, so that the latter can be raised as in walk- 

 ing. The wood is usually cut away at the sides 

 of the foot-rest, so that the strap will not be 

 worn by snow and ice. 



The engraving shows two different forms of 

 cross-sections at the foot-rest, and full-length 

 top and side views of the skee. The finest skees 

 have a general upward curve longitudinally, 

 but this is not essential. A staff with a sharp 

 iron point is used for steering and to serve as 

 a brake. With these skates it is possible to 



