The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-06-17
How to Prevent Drowning.

A writer in Nature says-J wish to show
how drowning might, under ordinary circum-
stances, be avoided even in the case Of persons
otherwise wholly ignorant of what is called the
art Of swimming The numerous frightful
casualties render every working suggestion OF
importance, and that which 1 offer here ven-
ture to think is entirely available:
When one OF the inferior animals takes the
water, falls, or is thrown in it instantly begins
to walk as 1t does when out of the water. But
when man who cannot swim falls into the
water, he makes q few spasmodic struggles.
throws up his arms and browns. The brute,
on the other hand, treads water remains on
the surface, and is virturally insubmergible In
order, then, to escape drowning, il is only nec-
essary to do as the brute does, and that is to
tread or walk the water. The brute has no
advantage in regard of his relative weight, in
respect of the water, over man, and yet the
man perishes while the brute lives Neverthe-
less, any man, any woman, or child who can
walk on the land may also walk in the water
Just as readily as the animal does, II only he
will, and that without any prior instruction or
drilling whatever. Throw a dog into the wa
ter and ne treads, or walks instantly, and
there is no imaginable reason why human
being under like circumstances should not do
as the dog does.
The brute indeed walks in the water in
stinctively, whereas the man has to be told.
The ignorance of SO simple possibility, name
ly, the possibility Of treading water, strikes me
as one of the most singular things in the histo-
~ OF man, and speaks very little indeed for
his intelligence He is, in fact, as ignorant on
the subject as the newborn babe. Perhaps
something is to bo ascribed to the vague
meaning which is attached to the word swim.
When man swims it means one thing when
dog swims it means another and quite diff
ferent act. The dog is wholly incapable of
swimming as man swims, but nothing is
more certain than that q man is capable of
swimming. and on the instant, too, as a dog
swims. without any previous training or in
hesitancy, he will be just as safe in the water
as the dog is.
The brute in the water continues to 60 on all
fours and the man who wishes to save his life
and cannot otherwise swim must do so too
striking alternately, one two, one, two, but
without hurry or precipitation, with hand and
foot exactly as the brute does. Whether he be
provided with paw or hoof, the brute swims
with the greatest ease and buoyancy. The
human being, il he will, can do so too. with
the further immense advantage of having q
paddle-formed hand, and of being able to rest
himself when tired, by floating, thing Of
which the animal has no conception.
Men and animals are able to sustain them
selves for long distances in the water, and
would do so much oftener were they not inca
pacitated, in regard to the former, at least, by
sheer terror, as well as complete ignorance OF
their real powers.
AhO iOoo VI illO lIOLU oulpWEcCky UOaIluR,
bathing, skating, fishing and accidental i'm
mersion Is SO disastrously great that every
feasible procedure calculated to avert it ought
to be mad recourse to. People will not consent
to wear life preservers, but il they only knew
that, in their own limbs properly used they
possessed the most efficient life preservers
they would most likely avail themselves of
them. The printed injunction should be past
ed up on all boat houses, on every boat, at
every bathing place and in every school,
'sTrnad vvQfar whap find ~
your depth" is all that need be said, unless,
indeed, we add, "Float when you are tired''
Every one, of whatever age or sex, or however
encumbered with clothing, might tread water
ing sea, as q four-footed animal does. The
position of aperson who treads water is in
other respects very much safer and better than
is the sprawling attitude which we assume in
ordinary swimming. And then the beauty Of
it is that we can tread water without any pre-
limlnary teaching, whereas to Swim" in
wolves time and pains. entails considerable IA
tigue, and is very seldom adequately acquired
after all. The Indians on the Missouri river,
when they have occasion to traverse that i'm
petuous stream, invariably tread water Just as
the dog treads it. Young persons of both sexes
OF the natives of Joanna, an island on the coast
OF Madagascar, walk the water, carrying fruit
and vegetables to ships becslmed, or it may be
lying to, in the offing miles away. Some Croo-
men, whose canoe upset before my eyes in the
seaway on the coast OF Africa, walked the
water, to the safe keeping OF their lives, with
the utmost facility, and witnessed negro chill
dren on other occasions doing so at very ten
der age. At Madras, watching their opportu-
nifty, messengers with letters secured in an OIL
skin cap plunge into the boiling surf and
make their way, treading the water, to the
vessels outside, through sea in which an or
dinary European boat will n ,t live, At the
Cape Of Good Hope men used to proceed to the
vessels in the offing through the mountain bill
lows, treading the water as they went with the
utmost security. And yet here, on. our own
shores and amid smooth waters, men, women
and children perish like flies annually, when q
little properly directed Understanding the
water as have said-would haply suffice to
rescue them every one.