Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1893 — The Best Swimmers. [ARTICLE]

The Best Swimmers.

“While at the seaside last summer,” said Henry L. Parnham, of Springfield, Mas?., who ha 9 been stopping at the Lindell, “I noticed one thing that surprised me very much. That was that

the beet swimmers were not to be found among those who were brought up near salt waters, but among those whose early lives bad been spent in the interior of the country. I also noticed that nearly all the young men from the Southern and Southwestern States could swim, while not half of the New Englanders were master of this art. The explanation I discovered to be as follows; "A n>»»t who has been training to swim In fresh water, when once he gets in the ocean feels as if motion in the water presented no difficulties at all. The sea wafcfer is so much denser than the fresh that efforts that would send a man along but slowly in the latter give him a racing speed in the former. The fresh-water swimmers always beat those trained by the ocean. The reason that there were more of them was climatic. The cold currents from the north render swimming on our NewJEnglund coast very uncomfortable except during three or four months. In the South and Southwest, however, bathing can be indulged in much longer, and as a result nearly every boy, especially those bred outside of o city, can swim. It was rather hard for us to be beaten by fresh-water swimmers, but we had to take it.”—[St. Louis Post-Dispatch.