March 10, 1882.] 



• KNOV/LEDGE 



403 



ain that the Euskarians of the conquered districts soon 

 ; lined to speak Celtic alone, just as the Irish are now fast 

 learning to speak English alone : and so after a short time 

 they became as indistinguishaVile from the true Celts, as 

 Normans and Danes in England have become indistinguish- 

 able from the rest of the community. Even the 8ilures, 

 who maintained their position as an independent Eiiskarian 

 tribe in South Wales, seem to have acquired the use of the 

 Celtic Welsh tongue before the date of the Roman invasion. 

 When contrasted with the Teutonic English, all these 

 C.^ltic-spcaking peoples came naturally at a later period to 

 be regarded as Celts. 



Thus, at the date when Britain first became known to 

 the civUised southern world by the Mediterranean, and 

 before any Englishmen had yet settled in the land, its 

 ethnical arrangement was something of this sort : — Along 

 the southern and eastern plains, from Hampshire, by 

 Sussex and Kent to East Anglia, Lincolnshire, and the 

 vale of Yorkshire, there lived a light Aryan Celtic race, 

 with more or less of subject or enslaved Euskarians — 

 doubtless, a good deal intermixed, as negroes, mulattoes, 

 quadroons, and whites, still are in the Southern States 

 aiid the West Indies, though the light Celtic aris- 

 toiiacy probably kept up the purity of its own 

 blood in the female line, as also happens in the 

 analogous modern case. Further west and further 

 north, among the hills of the Devonian peninsula, the 

 West Riding, Cumberland, and the Highlands, the number 

 of pure Celts was comparatively smaller, while the number 

 of dark Eviskarians was comparatively greater. And in 

 Wales itself, the Silures remained as unmixed Euskarians, 

 without a single drop of Aryan Celtic blood; while another 

 small Euskarian principality seems also to have held out in 

 the Athol district of Scotland. It is this compound mass 

 of pure Celts, mixed Celt-Euskarians, and pure Euskarians, 

 all speaking various Celtic dialects, that we ordinarily 

 L -tribe as Celtic, in contradistinction to the Teutonic 

 _Hsh, who came to the country at a later date. As to 

 md, the primitive Celtic immigration there was very 

 /.t ; and the mass of the population, though it acquired 

 ' iaelic dialect of Celtic as its langu.-xge, remained almost 

 ■ !ely Euskarian in blood up to the date of the Danish 

 in\a<ions, as it still remains in all except the northern and 

 easte-n coast. How far these aiTangements of the various 

 r.i f-e^ements were upset by the English (or Anglo-Saxon) 

 ••.leuent, we shall have to inquire in our next paper. 



KOTES ON ROWING. 

 By ax old Club Captain. 



APROF(J,ND knowledge of the theory of propulsion through 

 flaids i. not essential to skilful oarsmanship, and is probably 

 not possessed by one oarsman among ten thousand ; I may go 

 fnrther, and uv_q that even a perfect acquaintance with the prin- 

 ciples of rowingmay be found in company with singular inaptitude 

 for the practica. application of those principles. Shall I ever 

 r -rot, for instance, how ably No. 4 in our "tub " (when I was as 

 I beginner in oUege rowing) would discourse about the proper 

 of rowing, takng, if occasion suggested, a fire-shovel where- 

 : 1 to illustrate the beginning, middle, and end of the stroke ? but 

 I- ' in practice he Cqild never row a mile without catching a most 

 1 nstrons crab. 

 '■ is not, then, with any idea that the general run of oarsmen 

 Id study the meclmics of proi)uIsion or the true theory of 

 . iig either, that I pui these lines. But the subject is an in- 

 sting one, especially ^ust now, when Oxford and Cambridge 

 lireparing for their antwl straggle ; and a good oarsman is 

 '.y to bo none the worse'or some consideration of the rationale of 

 - :irt. 



According to the system if boat propulsion adopted in most 

 !ised countries (but the gondolas of Venice are propelled 



differently) the oar is a lever of the second class, in which the 

 fulcrum is at one end, the force is applied at the other, and the 

 weight is somewhere between the two. The fulcrum is not fixed as 

 in ordinary applications of the lever, for the water yields to the 

 oar in some degiTO ; but apart from this, the prii»ciple is precisely 

 that of the second class of levers. 



llany, however, who consider the problem of boat propulsion in 

 this way, are perplexed by the circumstance that the oarsman liim- 

 self is in the boat, and forms part of the propelled weight, while, 

 again, the central line of the boat's breadth docs not correspond 

 with the place where the driving force is actually applied to the 

 boat. Thus, if A B C is the oar, the rowlock at B, the place where the 

 resistance of the water against the blade may be supposed to act at 

 C, and the power of the oarsman applied at A, we know that in 

 reality the weight of the boat is under A, not under B ; while, 

 again, the power 1' is applied within the boat itself, and whatever 

 effect the pulling of the oarsman produces in one direction, must be 

 exactly counterbalanced by an effect in the opposite direction. It 

 is. in fact, the leverage alone which gives a balance of propulsive 



effect. The weight of the boat is really felt at B, so far as the par- 

 ticular oar A C is concerned ; the oarsman's strength is applied at 

 A, and is met by an equal resistance there, but the propulsive effect 

 at W is greater, in the same degree that the arm A C is greater 

 than the arm B C. Thus, if an oarsman pulls at his oar with a 

 force .such as would suffice to lift one hundredweight, and if A C is 

 12 ft. long and A W 3 ft, then the propulsive effect at W corre- 

 s^ionds to 112 lb. multi|ilied by 12 and divided by 9, or to 149J lb. 

 But the boat is not urged fonvard by this propulsive effect, only by 

 the excess of this amount over the force actually exerted by the 

 oarsman at A, so that the balance of propulsive action on the boat 

 with its crew corresponds to a force which would raise a weight of 

 (149J — 112) lb. at the same rate as the oarsman moves his end of 

 the oar. 



It is evident that the actual leverage increases as A W is in- 

 creased, supposing the oar's length to remain unchanged. But at 

 the same rate that the leverage is increased, the velocity with which 

 the oarsman's action tends to move the boat is diminished. 

 Supposing C to remain at rest, and the end, A, to move with a 

 given velocity V, the point W (at which the propulsive action is 

 really exerted) only moves with velocity Y diminished in the 

 ratio of C W to C A. It might seem, then, that the use of out- 

 riggers diminished rather than increased the propulsive power of the 

 oarsman — increasing his leverage, which one would have said did 

 not need to be increased when the boat was at once made lighter 

 and sharper — and diminishing the velocity with which his action 

 tends to urge the boat onwards. But at the same time that the row- 

 lock was thrown somewhat farther from the handle of the oar (not 

 nearly so much farther as many imagine, for the old boats were wider 

 in the beam, and their row locks were carried well out), the oar itself 

 was lengthened. Owing to the diminished resistance, too, as the boat 

 passed through the water, there is less slip of the oar through the 

 water, which thus supplies a more perfect fulcrum. Yet the 

 increase of velocity in light, outrigged boats is due more to the way 

 in which they maintain their speed between the strokes than to any 

 increased power of propulsion obtained by the oarsman. Being of 

 smaller beam and lighter than the old racing boats, and also without 

 keel and without laps, they maintain their velocity almost un- 

 changed between the strokes. 



And here arises a question which has been very summarily, but 

 in my opinion very incorrectly, disposed of by many writers on 

 rowing. It is often said that the principles of rowing are just the 

 same now as they were in the time of the old lap-stroaked inrigged 

 racing boats. The old rules for the action of arms and body — of 

 legs also, except in so far as the sliding scats modify their action — 

 are therefore repeated, as if no change whatever had been rendered 

 necessary by the changed style of boats. In other words, though 

 it is quite certain that the new racing boats behave quite dif- 

 ferently, though it is manifest that as they move more quickly 

 through the water they must receive a sharper propulsion, though 

 it is clear that with the greater leverage obtained from the use of 

 outriggers there arises a different amount as well as a different 

 degree of propulsion at each stroke, oarsmen (we are told) should 

 row in the same style now as befc re these changes were introduced. 



It would be as reasonable, I venture to say, to assert that the 

 style of stroke suitable for a coal barge must be the best also for a 

 wager boat. It is manifest there must be some changes, and 

 tolerably clear what those changes should be. And as a mere 

 matter of fact, it is seen that those rowing clubs wherein the old 

 style of rowing is clung to, get persistently beaten, or only win 



