172 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



priori grounds, then, we should expect to find the question 

 whether the style approved by ' Oarsmen ' 30 years ago 

 should be, as it is, the style constantly recommended now-a- 

 days depending simply on the question whether the racing 

 boat of our time is similar, so far as the requirements of 

 propulsion are concerned, to the old-fashioned racing boats, 

 however different in appearance the two kinds of boat may 

 be. To assert this, however, would be almost equivalent to 

 asserting that there has been no real improvement in the 

 qualities of racing boats nay, when one considers the great 

 advantages possessed, in some respects, by the old fashioned 

 boats and their much superior durability, we should have 

 to acknowledge that racing boats had deteriorated. No one 

 will for a moment assert this. We know that the racing boat 

 of our time is not only much lighter, but travels with much 

 less resistance through the water, maintains its velocity far 

 better between the strokes, and can be made with equal 

 effort to go at least one-fifth faster than the old fashioned 

 racing boat. The antecedent probability is, then, that the 

 modern racing boat requires a mode of propulsion unlike 

 that which was approved in 1840 or thereabouts requires, 

 in fact, a style which in those days would have been justly 

 regarded as radically bad. 



There is direct evidence from the results of many years 

 of racing to show that this difference really exists, as might 

 be expected, though the evidence may probably be questioned 

 by those who maintain that there is but one good rowing style. 

 It is well known that the style approved by ' Oarsmen ' in the 

 work above mentioned was first definitely inculcated by 

 Cambridge oarsmen. There is internal evidence in the 

 pamphlet itself (as where the miseries of the Lent races at 

 Cambridge are described) to show that some, and, therefore, 

 probably all, who took part in preparing the work were Cam- 

 bridge men. Again, it is well known that certainly until 

 1868, and perhaps later, the University crew at Cambridge 

 was ' coached ' by an * ancient mariner,' who, if not one of 

 the ' Oarsmen ' and, as was generally reported, the actual 



