May 19, 1 881] 



NATURE 



63 



without any prior experience wliatevcr. Nothing is less 

 difficult, whether for man or brute, than to tread water, 

 even for tlic first time. I have done so often, using the 

 feet alone or the hands alone, or the whole four, many 

 times, with perhaps one of my children on my back. 

 Once I recollect being carried a good way out to sea by 

 the receding tide at Boulogne, but regained the shore 

 without difficulty. A drop of water once passed through 

 the rima of the glottis, and on another occasion I expe- 

 rienced such sudden indisposition that if I had been 

 unable to float, it must, I think, have gone hard with me. 



Men and animals are able to sustain themselves for 

 long distances in the water, and would do so much 

 oftener were they not incapacitated, in regard of the 

 former at least, by sheer terror, as well as complete 

 ignorance of their real powers. Webb's wonderful en- 

 durance will never be forgotten. I'ut there are other 

 instances only less remarkable. Some years since, the 

 second mate of a ship fell overboard while in the act of 

 fisting a sail. It was blowing fresh ; the time was night, 

 and the place some miles out in the stormy German 

 Ocean. The hardy fellow nevertheless managed to gain 

 the English coast. lirock, with a dozen other pilots, was 

 plying for fares by Yarmouth ; and as the main-sheet was 

 belayed, a sudden puff of wind upset the boat, when 

 presently all (jerished except Brock himself, who, from 

 four in the afternoon of an October evening to one the 

 next morning, swam thirteen miles before he was able to 

 hail a vessel at anchor in the offing. Animals themselves 

 are capable of swimming immense distances, although 

 unable to rest by the way. A dog recently swam thirty 

 miles in America in order to rejoin his master. A mule 

 and a dog washed overboard during a gale in the Bay of 

 Biscay have been known to make their way to shore. A 

 dog swam ashore with a letter in his mouth at the Cape 

 of Good ffojje. The crew of the ship to which the dog 

 belonged all perished, which they need not have done 

 had they only ventured to tread water as the dog did. 

 As a certain ship was labouring heavily in the trough of 

 the sea, it was found needful, in order to lighten the 

 vessel, to throw some troop-horses overboard which had 

 been taken in at Corunna. The poor things, my infor- 

 mant, a staff-surgeon, told me, when they found them- 

 selves abandoned, faced round and swam for miles 

 after the vessel. A man on the east coast of Lincoln- 

 shire saved quite a number of lives by swimming out on 

 horseback to vessels in distress. He commonly rode an 

 old grey mare, but when the mare was not to hand he 

 took the first horse that offered. 



The loss of life from shipwreck, boating, bathing, 

 skating, fishing, and accidental immersion is so disas- 

 trously great, that every feasible procedure calculated to 

 avert it ought to be had recourse to. People v/ill not 

 consent to wear life-preservers, but if they only knew 

 that in their own limbs, properly used, they possessed the 

 most efficient of life-preservers, they would most likely 

 avail themselves of them. In every school, every house, 

 there ought to be a slate tank of sufficient depth, with a 

 trickle of water at one end and a syphon at the other, in 

 order to keep the contents pure. A pail or two of hot 

 water would at any time render the contents sufficiently 

 warm. In such a tank every child from the time it could 

 walk ought to be made to tread water daily. Every adult, 

 when the opportunity presents itself, should do so. The 

 printed injunction should be pasted up on all boat-houses, 

 on every boat, at every bathing place, and in every school. 

 " Tread water when you find yourself out of your depth " 

 is all that need be said, unless indeed we add, " Float 

 when you are tired." Every one, of whatever age or sex, 

 or however encumbered with clothing, might tread water 

 with at least as much facility, even in a breaking sea, as 

 a four-footed animal does. The position of a person who 

 treads water is, in other respects, very much safer and 

 better than is the sprawling attitude which we assume in 



ordinary swimming. And then the beauty of it is that 

 we can tread water without any preliminary teaching, 

 w-hereas " to swim " involves time and pains, entails con- 

 siderable fatigue, and is very seldom adequately acquired 

 after all. 



The Indians on the Missouri River, when they have 

 occasion to traverse that impetuous stream, invariably 

 tread water just as the dog treads it. The natives of 

 Joanna, an island on the coast of Madagascar, young 

 persons of both sexes, walk the water carrying fruit and 

 vegetables to ships becalmed, or it may be lying-to, 

 in the offing miles away. Some Croomen whose canoe 

 upset before my eyes in the seaway on the coast of Africa 

 walked the water, to the safe-keeping of their lives, with 

 the utmost facility ; and I witnessed negro children on 

 other occisions doing so at a very tender age. At 

 Madras, watching their opportunity, messengers, with 

 letters secured in an oilskin cap, plunge into the boiling 

 surf, and make their way, treaiing the water, to the 

 vessels outside, through a sea in which an ordinary Euro- 

 pean boat will not live. At the Cape of Good Hope men 

 used to proceed to the vessels in the offing through the 

 mountain billows, treading the water as they went with 

 the utmost security. And yet here, on our own shores, 

 and amid smooth waters, men, women, and children 

 perish like flies annually, when a little properly-directed 

 effort — treading the water as I have said — would haply 

 suffice to rescue them every one. 



Belfast Henry MacCormac 



NOTES 

 We learn from the Times that at the meeting of the Royal 

 Society on Thursday last the vacancies in the list of foreign 

 members were filled by the election of Gabriel Auguste Danbree 

 of Paris, Jean Charles. Marignac of Geneva, Carl Nageli of 

 Munich, and CarljWeieritras of Berlin. 



Sir John Lubbock has been nominated to succeed Prof. 

 Allman as president of the Linnean Society, and Mr. 0. J. 

 Romanes for the post of zoological secretary, vacant by Mr. 

 Alston's lamented death. 



In the current number of the Revue Scientifiqtte there is an 

 article by M. de LacazeDuthiers descriptive of an interesting 

 enterprise on which he is engaged, viz. the construction of a 

 zoological laboratory at Port Vendres. Backed by the recom- 

 mendation of the Academy of Sciences, he obtained a liberal 

 offer from the municipal authorities of the place, which among 

 other considerations determined him in the selection of the site. 

 Altogether he is provided with 32,000 francs as a capital sum, 

 750 francs per annum as a fixed income, with the gift of building 

 ground and a boat. It will thus be seen that the municipal 

 authorities deserve all credit for the substantial encouragement 

 which they have extended to the undertaking. In a few months 

 the laboratory will be completed, and is then to be thrown open 

 to workers of all nationalities. As its situation on the coast of 

 the Mediterranean is an admirable one for the procuring of fauna, 

 the ia-titution is in every way favourably circumstanced, and we 

 cordially wi^h it all success. 



The English Transit of Venus Commission having expressed 

 a desire for an understanding with the French Commission, so 

 as to secure a unif jrm method of observation, M. d'Abbadie and 

 M. Tisserand are coming to London to compare notes with the 

 English Commission. 



A LETTER from M. Mascart, director of the French Central 

 Meteorological Bureau, read at last week's meeting of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, stated that the French Government intend 

 to establish an observatory for terrestrial magnetism at Cape 

 Horn. The expedition will set out in the same vessel as will 



