186 



- \\ IMMINCJ SWINDEN. 



danger, and to easily acquired, particularly as they 

 would learn it more easily than males, and as the 

 exercise of swimming would be peculiarly useful to 

 certain functions peculiarto females. A covered place, 

 female teachers, and a loose dress from the neck to 

 the ankles would satisfy all the claims of propriety. , 

 It is time that a beginning should be made. 



The human body, with air in the lungs, is a lit- 

 tle lighter than fresh and considerably lighter than 

 salt water; hence it does not sink entirely in 

 water ; but the entrances to the organs of respira- 

 tion are so placed that they would be under water 

 in a body floating naturally. With a little manage- 

 ment, however, and perfect confidence (which, it is 

 true, can only be expected from a swimmer), any 

 person can float on his back, especially in salt 

 water. To do this, you must turn yourself on your i 

 back as gently as possible, elevate your breast ' 



above the surface, put your head back, so that your 

 eyes, nose, mouth, and chin only are above water. 

 By keeping in this position, with the legs and arms 

 extended, and paddling the hands gently by the 

 side of the hips, you will float. If you wish to 

 swim, you must strike out with the legs. You 

 may lay the arms across the breast; keep them 

 motionless at the sides; or, if you wish, strike out 

 with them, to help you on. Animals, in swimming, 

 do not vary much from their motion in walking; but 

 man is obliged to change his motion entirely. All the 



Sclavonic tribes Russians, Poles, &c swim in a 



way somewhat resembling the motion of dogs in the 

 water, making a separate effort with each of the four 

 extremities. Every teacher should remember that 

 swimming is half learned when the pupil has gained 

 confidence; and it is generally very easy to inspire it. 

 The best treatise on swimming with which we are 

 acquainted, is a thin pamphlet, published by general 

 von Pfuel, in Berlin, 1817. Almost every reader 

 is familiar with Dr Franklin's advice to swimmers. 

 Dr Franklin's instructions in learning to swim are, 

 to turn and roll in all possible ways in the water 

 to stand or sit in the water to swim with the legs 

 tied with the hands out of the water to leap 

 like a goat and even to cut the toe-nails in the 

 water. The doctor used to lie on his back in a 

 river, with the string of a flying kite in his mouth, 

 which used to draw him along like a sail. He also 

 made two painters' pallets, which, fixed on his 

 thumb, he used as paddles to propel him forward. 

 He does not object to the use of corks, provided, 

 of course, that they are so fixed as not to slip from 

 the shoulder to the waist, an accident by which so 

 many have been drowned ; and he advises the choice 

 of clean water for the sake of the skin, though a 

 much better reason, we apprehend, for the avoiding 

 of dirty water, is the chance that a learner will gulp 

 down no small quantity before he becomes a profi- 

 cient. The professor of swimming in the Naval ' 

 Academy at Naples (Signer Oronzio di Bernardi), i 

 makes his first lesson to consist in enabling the 

 pupil to swim upright, to give him some idea of 

 the natural -buoyancy of the body, and to render the , 

 action of the limbs in swimming as similar as pos- 



sible to their motion in our usual exercises. He 

 tells us that in eleven days he taught a youth to 

 swim nearly six miles in the Bay of Naples, his 

 system being not one of rapidity, but of husband- 

 ing and recruiting the strength ; but an ordinary 

 Mvimmer ought to swim at least three miles an 

 hour. Men have been frequently known to swim 

 thirty miles a-day; and the famous Neapolitan 

 diver, generally known by the name of II Pesce, or 

 the fish, on one occasion performed the distance of 

 fifty miles in twenty-four hours, on the coast of 

 Calabria. Several feats of modern swimming have, 

 within a few years past, occurred, in which consi- 

 derable prowess has been evinced. Lord Byron and 

 a Mr Ekenhead swam across the Hellespont. The 

 same fecit was accomplished by a Neapolitan and a 

 young Jew. Lord Byron's object was to ascertain 

 whether the Hellespont could be crossed at all by 

 swimming. Lord Byron succeeded in an hour and 

 ten minutes; Mr Ekenhead in one hour and five 

 minutes, with the tide not in their favour. In a 

 letter to Mr Murray from Ravenna, dated February 

 21, 1821, lord Byron on this subject writes " My 

 own experience, and that of others, bids me pro- 

 nounce the passage of Leander perfectly practicable. 

 Any young man in good health, and with tolerable 

 skill in swimming, might succeed in it from either 

 side. I was three hours in swimming across the 

 Tagus, which is much more hazardous, being two 

 hours longer than the passage of the Hellespont. 

 Of what may be done in swimming, I shall mention 

 one more instance. In 1818, the Chevalier Men- 

 galdo (a gentleman of Bassano), a good swimmer, 

 wished to swim with my friend Mr Alexander Scott 

 and myself. As he seemed particularly anxious on 

 the subject, we indulged him. We all three started 

 from the island of the Lido, and swam to Venice. 

 At the entrance of the Grand Canal, Scott and I 

 were a good way a-head, and we saw no more of 

 our foreign friend, which, however, was of no con- 

 sequence, as there was a gondola to hold his clothes, 

 and pick him up. Scott swam on till past the 

 Rialto, where he got out, less from fatigue than 

 from chill, having been four hours in the water, 

 without rest or stay, except what is to be obtained 

 by floating on one's back this being the condition 

 of our performance. I continued my course on to 

 Santa Chiara, comprising the whole of the Grand 

 Canal (besides the distance from Lido), and got 

 out where the Laguna opens to Fusina. I had been 

 in the water, by my watch, without help or ;-esf, 

 and never touching ground or boat, four hours and 

 twenty minutes." 



SWINDEN, JOHN HENRY VAN, a Dutch philo- 

 sopher, born at the Hague, in 1746, was educated 

 at Leyden, and became professor of philosophy, 

 logic and metaphysics at Franeker, in 1767. Nine- 

 teen years after, he was called to the chair of phy- 

 sics, mathematics and astronomy at the Athenaeum 

 at Amsterdam. In 1770, he became a member of 

 the academy of sciences at Paris ; and he gained the 

 prize offered by that learned body for the best me- 

 moir Sur les Aiyulles aimantces et leurs Variations. 

 and, in 1780, obtained a prize from the academy of 

 Munich, for a memoir in answer to the question, 

 " What analogy is there between electricity and 

 magnetism?" which was afterwards printed (2 vols., 

 8vo.). In 1798, he appeared at Paris, at the 

 national institute, to assist in the establishment of 

 a new system of weights and measures, when he 

 was appointed to draw up the reports on those sub- 

 jects. In 1803, he was nominated a correspondent 



