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 11 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 principles 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 practice 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 boats of the same kind for each class--eight oars, four oars, pairs, and sculls--it is in a sense true that there is but one racing style. But even in river rowing, as distinguished from river racing, there are more styles than one,--by which we mean more correct styles, for, of course, there are multitudinous bad styles in every kind of rowing. The style suitable for a racing boat moving at full speed would not be suitable even for the same boat at starting, and would be utterly unsuitable for a pleasure boat. We may remark, in passing, that, however suitable tubbing practice may be several weeks before a race, it is open to objection after a crew has settled into its racing stroke. No one who understands rowing will assert that even the two strongest members of either University crew _can_ row in the same style in tub practice as in their eight at her full speed, or, seeing them, will fail to perceive that they row entirely different strokes in the tub and in the eight. Again, the style of rowing proved by practical experience to be best in seaside racing is entirely different from the style successful in river racing. Yet another style is essential to success in races rowed in the heavier boats used by men-of-war's men. And it will be admitted, we think, though no experiments have yet, to our knowledge, been made in this direction, that if matches were arranged among our best bargemen and lightermen we should see a mode