A MEASURED ROWING COURSE.

The recent changes in the order of the University crew render the suggestion made in the Bulletin of measuring and marking a rowing course in the Basin most appropriate. It has long been a subject of much regret that we have had no accurate means of comparing our crews with those of other universities. Since the Basin is now practically without current, such a course could easily be laid off starting from near the Cottage Farm Bridge and be marked with paint or posts on the banks at the half-mile, mile, and finish, or at any other convenient points.

The CRIMSON takes the liberty of quoting a portion of the Bulletin's article:

"There is only one way of telling whether a crew is fast, and that is by timing it over a measured course on still water. If, for example, the points were now properly marked, the coach could send the University crew in its changed order over the long course and decide whether the eight as now made up is faster than it was before the Cornell race. As things are now, we merely guess, and do not always guess correctly. No one knows whether the course most commonly used is a mile and seven-eighths long or not. We guess that it is not. If it were, no eight-oared crew in the world would be able to row over it in less than nine minutes, as it was said the Harvard crew did just before the Cornell race. If the distances along the river had been carefully measured and there had been an opportunity for making comparisons with the times made in earlier years, we should not have heard this spring so much about a record-breaking Freshman crew and subsequently learned that it needed very radical changes if it was to beat Yale, as its predecessors have done. When it is so easy to get facts, it is a pity to rely upon anything else."