In 1870 Renforth’s champion four used to slide on the seat for a spurt, but not for a whole course. They beat the St. John’s Canadian crew very easily while so rowing in a mateh at Lachine, but we believe that they would have won with about as much ease had they rowed on fixcd seuts. In the same year a ‘John o’ Gaunt’ four from Lancaster came to Henley Regatta and towed in this fashion, sliding on fixed seats. ‘They had very little body swing, and their style showed all the worst features of the subsequent style which became tea common when sliding seats were first established. They did almost all their work by the piston action of the legs, and their limbs tired under the strain at the end of three or four minutes. They led a light crew of Oxford ‘Old Radleians’ by three lengths past lawley Court, and then began to come back to them, ‘he Oxonians steadily gained on them, but had to come round outside them at the Point, and could never get past them, losing the race by less than a yard. Enough was seen on this occasion to convince oarsmen that the Lancastrian style was only good for half-mile racing. In the final heat for the Stewards’ fours a good L.R.C. crew beat the Lancastrians with ease after going half a mile. The Radlcians would doubtless have also gone well by the Lan- castrians had the course been a hundred yards longer.
So far the old fixed seat had vindicated itself for staying purposes. But in the following year a problem was practically solved. It seems that (so Mr. Brickwood tells us) an oarsman comparatively unknown to fame, one Mr, R. O. Birch, had used an actual sliding seat at King’s Lynn Regatta in 1870. Mr. Brickwood seems to have been the only writer who took cogni- sance of this interesting fact. University men and tideway amateurs, also professionals so far as we can gather, seem not to have heard of, or at least not to have heeded, the ex- periment. Had Mr, Birch been a leading sculler of the day, possibly the innovation might have been adopted earlier than it was,
Meantime in America the sliding seat had heen better known, but had not been appreciated. Mr. Brickwood tells us
