170 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



the weight is raised without bruising the fingers or breaking 

 the cord. Yet a still more sudden movement would break the 

 cord in this case, though a yet more extensible cord would 

 resist even a yet more sudden jerk. According to the 

 strength of the cord, its extensibility, and the weight to be 

 lifted, must be the nature of the upward pull in order that the 

 greatest possible velocity may be communicated without 

 injury to the cord or to the lifter's hand. This simple series 

 of experiments involves the essential principles of effective 

 propulsion, where, at least, great velocity is among the 

 results to be attained. 



Although, perhaps, at present, the public are disposed to 

 consider the University race from a sporting rather than 

 from a scientific point of view, yet it has long been admitted, 

 even by the most ardent lovers of rowing as a sport, that it 

 has its scientific side. In a pamphlet on the * Principles of 

 Rowing,' by * Oarsmen,' written somewhere about the year 

 1847, it bears no date, but speaks of rowing as having 

 first appeared as a public amusement 1 1 years ago, and the 

 first University race on the Thames was rowed in 1836, 

 the writers urge that rowing surely deserves to be called a 

 scientific pursuit, and proceed to trace out the * main princi- 

 ples in virtue of which it claims a scientific character.' These 

 principles, which were generally considered sound when 

 they were originally enunciated, though even then they were 

 beginning to be to some degree questionable, have been 

 quoted over and over again since, or, if not verbally quoted, 

 have been, in effect, adopted by writers on rowing. The 

 justice of some of them has caused the entire set to be 

 received without question, even by oarsmen who in practice 

 depart from several of them in a very marked degree. The 

 assumption has been that there is but one good rowing 

 style, and that, therefore, a style adopted and proved by prac- 

 tice to be the best in the years 1836-1846 should be adopted 

 as the best now. ' There is but one style,' says one 

 authority, ' and one alone,' he adds with some redundancy. 

 Now, in so far as river racing is almost always carried on in 



