muscles which overlie the chest in front and at the back.

Fig. 4 is from a photograph (the face altered, however,) of an eminent American oarsman. The weakness of the chest muscles and upper arms of this powerful sculler will be noticed at once; but this is

a much less serious defect than the hollow, overhung chest, and especially the depressions over the collarbones. This configuration of the chest we should be disposed to regard as peculiar to rowing men,-not,

indeed, to rowing men as a class, but to those rowing men who do not correct the unequal effects of their favourite exercise by the use of such chest-developing exercises as I have described in the preceding pages.

For comparison with Fig. 4 I give three well-known Greek figures, viz., Fig. 5, the Theseus of the Parthenon (as much of it as the "unspeakable Turk”

left after his musketry practice at these noble sculptures), and Figs. 6 and 7, showing four chests in the upper halves of two Metopes from the same Temple. I would especially call attention to the wonderful diversity of chest development in these four chests.

The left-hand figures in each are Lapithæ, and the contrast between their well-developed but elegant frames and the coarser types of the Centaurs is worth careful examination, both as an artistic and as an anatomical study. But the two Lapithæ are also dis

Fig. 6. From a Metope (Parthenon).

tinguished from each other, as are the two Centaurs. Of the two former, the one in Fig. 6 is the more

Fig. 7. From a Metope (Parthenon).

powerful, but the other in Fig. 7 is more perfect. I know nothing in ancient or modern sculpture surpassing in beauty this perfectly-developed trunk.

CHAPTER III.

MUSCLES OF THE ABDOMEN.

WE come now to certain muscles which are usually

very much neglected in this country, espe

cially by the fairer, and in this respect certainly the weaker, sex. When we hear men talking of wearing stays, or find that they are even thinking of such an absurdity, we have in reality the clearest evidence that the abdominal muscles have been neglected. A man in decent condition should as soon think of taking to crutches as to corsets.

Weak abdominal muscles are readily detected in walking. If a sense of distress across the abdomen and around the loins is felt after moderate walking exercise, especially after a slow walk, if the shoulders begin to hang forward, or the trunk lean forward from the hips, we may be sure that the waist muscles want attending to. This also shows that walking affords them exercise. But it is not the best exercise for them.

Wearing a corset, or shoulder-straps, or a backboard, will prevent you from feeling this sense of distress about the waist. So will lying on your back all the time. If you like, you can adopt these mea

D

sures.

In that case we are writing, not for you, but for others not quite so lazy or so unwise.

Taking, first, walking exercise, directed to the special purpose of strengthening the abdominal muscles, observe that a long wearisome walk will do more harm than good in the long-run. Take a sharp, steady two-mile walk, at not less than three and a half miles an hour, and not more than four; keep the head up, shoulders well back, the body erect, the abdomen slightly forward, but not enough to hollow the back. Half a mile walked in this way will do more good than four or five miles at a dragging pace. The heart and lungs have good space to act in, and you presently find that they do act, and with energy. It is in maintaining this attitude that the muscles around the waist are exercised.

In running, which ought to be a daily exercise with all men in good health (though, as I have said, not suddenly or rashly begun, but moderately), the waist muscles are called into play if the style of running is well chosen-shoulders held well back, body upright, and strides long and energetic.

Turn now to indoor exercise.

Here is one which will very quickly harden the abdominal muscles. Sit on a bed with the toes hitched under the cross-bar of the foot-board (you can pad the bar if it hurts your instep at all), so that when you lie back your head falls on the pillow. (Pitch the pillow out, however.) Sway the trunk steadily backward, till you are lying in a horizontal