AQUATIC ITEMS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2181, 21 February 1881, Page 3

AQUATIC ITEMS.

Hanlan has been offered £SOO for the shell in which he defeated Trickett, but he declined to sell, preferring to bring it home with him. His practice boats were disposed of easily. Tom Green purchased two of them.

When Boss beat Trickett he went around among tho passengers on the referee’s boat, and as is the custom in England, made a collection for the defeated man. Trickett was offered the amount of the collection 125 dols, but with rage depicted on every feature, he spurned the offer, called Boss a “ coward,” and said he was “ neither a man nor a mouse.” Boss kept his temper, and referred Trickett to his last challenge. The “ Sydney Man,” “ tho Australian,” “ the Antipodean,” “ the Bushranger,” “ the Cornstalk, “ the Shark Islander,” “ the Nugget,” “ the New South Wales Representative,” “tho Digger,” “the Herdsman,” &0., are the pet names given to Layoock in England. It is not to be wondered at that Hosmer is called “the Lightning Boy.” Haulan’s family, it seems, are all noted for the style in which they can ply the oar. The art is bred in him, for when his father kept a lighthouse on the American coast, it was the duty of the mother to run out each day with her husband's dinner. In managing a boat in all kinds of weather, she was noted for her great dexterity, and this she seems to have imparted to her progeny, for Hanlan’s sister is also noted for the beautiful manner in which she can handle the soulls. Warren Smith, the American, since his arrival home, has been talking row. He is of opinion that there is no sculler in England that can defeat him.

Numerous experiments have lately been made with gas in raci g boats. Some oarsmen think that by filling the air-tight compartments fore and aft with hydrogen gas, extraordinary buoyancy can be gained, A correspondent punctures these gas bellows, however, by the following letter:—“ Seeing something about this wonderful Tyneside invention, I beg of you to damp it out. Any mathematical schoolboy could prove that there is only about 2[ cubic feet of available space in a skiff where tho gas could be stowed, and then knowing that the weight of air was ,08072 pounds per cubic foot—in vacuo, of course—and that hydrogen gas, which is the lightest gas that can be used, is .00560 per cubic foot, he will again easily prove that the additional buoyancy gained by the gas farce is about three ounces. The lightest extra fittings necessary to confine the gas weigh 5£ pounds, so that a gas boat, instead of being better than an ordinary paper or cedar shell, is, in reality, Bi pounds worse.” This seems like putting Thompson right away.