IN CONCLUSION
mond; on Saratoga Lake; back again at Springfield; then at New London; then Poughkeepsie; then back to New London. Which is the great American inter-University race-course? Does any one know? Is it not almost time that something definite came; and men each year could look back at previous records on the same track, and compare them; and so approach some clear idea of whether our oarsmen are improving or going back? The famous Putney-to-Mortlake stretch of four miles and three furlongs is far from a good course; straight nowhere after Hammersmith Bridge—in fact, one large letter S; the crew fresh enough to keep the inside for two miles can have the pole all the way; so that the two crews never cover the same distance. Our Poughkeepsie course, while straight, is on such broad water that while national legislation keeps it fairly clear on race-day, it has no control over it during practice; and the broad surface exposed to every breeze, and ceaselessly churned by the swash of passing steam-craft, has proved its unfitness for a contest of such importance; while the race is not, in fact, at Poughkeepsie, but over on the other side of a wide river, where there is scarcely even a village. And at New London, the Thames, so pinched, and full of eel-grass in one portion, that even two crews cannot fairly row abreast, is really an arm of Long Island Sound, close by; and is so affected by every tide that the number of hours for either racing or practice is hardly two in twelve; while every breeze at all southerly is likely to knock up such a sea as to make it unfit for shell-rowing. Men who have made great preparation and sacrifice for the most important athletic contest of their lives might at least be guaranteed a first-class track, a worthy arena for such an arduous struggle.
And happily there is such water—not an S, but almost
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