UNDER WATER The ability to swim under water is often of service, but the encouragement of competitions in this branch of swimming is extremely inadvisable, inasmuch as the competitors never know when to desist when a prize is in view, and are often affected in a dangerous manner by long immersion.
S•imming'under water must be practised by experts who desire to give exhibitions, but immersion should never be pro longed in the hope of reaching any definite point or swimming any certain distance before rising to the surface. In bath competitions it'very often happens that the swimmers have to be fetched out of the water, whilst those held in lakes, rivers, and the sea have time and againended in disastrous accidents. The swimmers have gone on 'even after the warning pain which strikes to the back of the neck has become pronounced, gradu ally lapsed into a state of insensibility, and been drowned, whilst spectators have been frantically watching for -their re-appearance. Many others have been caught in weeds and been unable to get free, and these mishaps have led to the Amateur Swimming Association of England publicly discountenancing under-water distance swimming competi tions.
We have ourselves frequently watched these dangerous contests in baths, and have, on more than one occasion, ob served idiotic competitors overstrain themselves and bring on fatal complications. It is painful to watch a swimmer struggling on against fearful odds, in the hope of beating the best performance of another man and thereby gaining a paltry prize. The leg action gradually gets slower and slower, the arm action short and strained, until at last the arms just move slightly from the shoulder line, the body rises about a foot and then sinks to the bottom motionless. A contretemps of this nature at an entertainment is sufficient to cause those of the spectators who are not swimmers to abjure all thought of learning, and the unfortunate competitor himself may do lasting injury to his lungs. This fact is so well known and so apparent to any person of common sense that it is extraordi nary to find mere youths at school being compelled to pass tests in distance under-water swimming.
The great advantage of being able to swim under water is that a swimmer may then be enabled to reach the body of a drowning person, or stay under long enough to disentangle that body from weeds or other obstruction ; but it is far better to practise it by picking up single objects from a reasonable depth than to swim against time or distance.
Naturally the ability to swim under water varies consider ably, and some men can move beneath the surface for a remarkable time and distance. Exhaustion, of course, ensues much sooner when the body is in motion than when stationary, and the time records for swimming under water are much lower than those for staying under water. The best authenticated distance performance known to us is that of 34o feet by James Finney, in 1882. This swimmer has made under-water per formances his speciality, and has therefore had considerable opportunity of obtaining perfection. In 1887, an amateur, William Reilly, of Salford, swam 312 feet under water, whilst in 189o, a boy between nine and ten years of age, named Archie McMillan, swam 132 feet under water in 51i seconds. About the outside limit of endurance when swimming under water is a minute and a half, but very few persons could approach this time. The pearl-divers, of whose ability so much is often written and heard, do not swim under water, although they work on the bottom. Their maximum, according to reported observations, appears to be about two minutes ; but on rising to the surface they are exhausted, and blood often flows from the nostrils. In swimming under water the ordi nary breast-stroke is almost invariably used. The head is depressed so that the chin touches the breast, and when it is necessary to rise a deflection of the head backwards at once causes the body to come to the surface. Side-swimming can be accomplished, but it is very difficult, a scoop upwards having to be made with both hands at the finish of each stroke, and this of course greatly retarding progress.
In order to keep a straight course, care should be taken that the head ia not taken to the side, or else the body will travel in the direction towards which the head is pointed. When swimming a long distance the body should be kept as near the surface as possible, as the pressure will thereby be sensibly relieved. Before starting the lungs should be well emptied and refilled, and if care be taken to rise as soon as the premonitory symptoms of asphyxiation are noticeable, the swimmer will gradually improve his staying powers.