HOW TO KEEP FROM DROWNING.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1146, 13 September 1882, Page 2

HOW TO KEEP FROM DROWNING.

The human body weighs a pound in the water, and a single chair will cany two grown persons, lliat is, it would keep the bead above water, which is all that is necessary, when it is a question of life or death. One finger placed upon a stool or chair, or a small box, or pfece of board, will easily keep the bead above water, while the two feet and tbe other hand may be used as paddles to propel toward the shore. It is not at all necessary to know how to swim to be abfe to keep from drowning in this way. A little experience of tbe buoyant power of water, ana faith in it, is all that is required. We have seen a small boy who could not swim a stroke propel himself across a deep, wide po id by means of a board that would roi sustain slb. weight. CbPdren aud others should have practice in the sustaining power of water. In nine cases out of ten the know l edge that what will sustain a pound weight is all that is necessary to keep the head above water, wi l ! serve better in emergency than the greatest expertness as a swimmer. A person unfamiliar with the buoyant power of water will naturally try to climb ou top of the floating object oxi which he tries to save himself. If it is large enough, that is all right but it generally is not large enough and half o' a struggling group is often drowned ixi the desperate scramble of a life-aud-death struggle to climb on top of a piece of wreck, or other floating object, not large enough to keep them all entirely above water. This often happens when pfeasure boats capsize. All immediately want to get out of tae water ou top of the overturned or half-filled boat, and all are drowned except those whom the wrecked craft will wholly bear up. If they would simply trust the water to sustain 99 hundredths of the weight of their bodies, and the disabled boat the other hundredth, they might all be saved under most circumstances. An overturned or water-filled wood boat will sustain more people in this way than it will carry. It would keep the heads above water of as many people as could get their hands on the gunwale. These are simple facts, easily learned, and may some day save your life.