33 



oar, especially if heavy overboard, and without the proper proportion of 

 leverage from the handle to the vessel's side, will very soon fatigue and 

 cripple the stoutest and most expert oarsman. 



In accepting, therefore, any theory as to the arrangement of the 

 rowers and rowing benches of the ancient Galleys, we must never lose 

 sight of certain conditions, familiar to all who are accustomed to the 

 uses and application of the oar. 



In the first place, we will consider the length of oar which can be 

 used with the best effect by a single individual. 



The most approved length in the present day for rowing those nume- 

 rous matches which are daily occurring during the summer months in 

 every part of Great Britain (for there is hardly a creek large enough to 

 float a boat where you will not find a rowing match advertised once or 

 oftener every year), the most approved length of the oar is from 12 to 

 13 feet. In some sea-shore matches, oars may be found of 15 or 16 feet ; 

 but that is quite the limit to which the length of a " match" oar is car- 

 ried in the present day. 



The proportion overboard and inboard (being the leverage exercised 

 in drawing the oar through the water) is the next consideration ; and it 

 is generally held by good oarsmen that the oar should be about twice 

 and a half as long overboard as it is inboard — that is to say, if the oar 

 be 3 ft. 6 in. inboard, there should be a length beyond the rowlock of 

 8 ft. 9 in. outside the boat. 



At the Great Exhibition, some oars, from America, were shown, of 

 about 40 feet in length, and we see oars nearly as long used in the Thames' 

 coal lighters; but these are only used in guiding the craft in the stream, 

 and the strongest man could not move them fast enough for propelling 

 even an empty lighter through the water faster than one mile an hour. 

 Gun brigs were formerly provided, by the regulations of the navy, 

 with a few sweeps, of 36 feet long ; but these were only used for an 

 occasional effort to move the vessel a short distance, and in dead calms — 

 quite a different thing from regular " rowing." In fact, it maybe safely 

 asserted that 1 6 feet is the very longest oar that can be applied to rapid 

 motion by a single rower. But if we admit the theory of the trireme 

 having three men to each oar, there is no doubt but that oars of 26 or 

 28 feet long may have been used by them. 



It is the manner in which these oars were placed that we have now 

 to consider, reconciling, if possible, the practical use of the oar with the 

 theories which have been set up as to the terms " trireme," " quinque- 

 reme," &c, so constantly occurring in the ancient historians, and so va- 

 riously explained by their translators and critics. 



Many of these have, in their ignorance of maritime detail, adopted 

 the notion that a trireme had three rows of oars, worked each by one 

 rower, and that the transtra, or benches, were one over the other; in other 

 words, that a trireme was a sort of three-decker, only of oars instead of 

 guns. 



Now, as the very lowest height in which a man could sit in a rowing 

 position is 4 ft. 6 in., and as the lowest height of the lowest range of oars 



B,. I. A. PEOC. VOL. IX. F 



