It has been said that the shallowness of the Cam affects the style of Cambridge oarsmen. This seems to me a fanciful theory. Occasionally in the course of a race close steering round one or other of the sharper corners might permit the oarsmen to 'feel the bottom,' for two or three strokes; but during all the rest of the course the oars find plenty of water to take good hold of. The Cam was undoubtedly growing shallower for some time after 1860; and the change gave some degree of support to the theory that the peculiarities of the Cambridge style were due to the peculiarities of the Cambridge river. But I believe the notion was a wholly mistaken one; and I am confirmed in this belief by noticing that the Cambridge style from 1860 to 1869 was in all essential respects, and especially in that feature which I shall presently describe as its radical and fatal defect, the same precisely as it had been in earlier times when Cambridge was oftener successful than defeated. I have heard Cambridge men say, indeed, that after rowing on the Cam they feel quite strange on Thames water. They feel, they say, as if the boat were running away with them. I have experienced the feeling myself, when rowing on the Thames anywhere below Teddington; but most markedly below Kew. It is not due, however, to the mere difference in the depth of the two streams, but mainly, if not wholly, to the circumstance that the lower part of the Thames is a tidal river. It is not noticeable above Teddington, save (in a somewhat modified form) in those portions of the river called 'races,' where the stream runs with unusual rapidity. I should suppose that Oxonians felt the influence of this peculiarity fully as much as Cambridge oarsmen do; in fact, I know that this is the experience of some Oxonians, for they have told me as much.