It must be allowed that the site which our ancestors adopted for the foundation of an University was not chosen with any reference to its adaptation to nautical exercises. Originally a scanty streamlet choked with mud and sedge and almost dry four months in the year, the Cam has been formed into an artificial canal by the hand of man and has been economically adapted to the wants of the coal-barges, to which it now affords a means of transit. Its width therefore is pretty uniformly from twenty to twenty-five yards; a channel about seven feet in depth is scooped in the centre, the water being often very shallow at some distance from the banks. The nearest lock is a quarter of a mile below the town, and the various boat-houses are ranged along the river side beyond it. It is now only twelve years since the naval armaments of Cambridge consisted almost entirely of funnies and canoes, large fleets of which were wont, on a calm summer evening, to glide down the stream and disport themselves on the bosom of the broad reach opposite Chesterton. In those days there was a lock immediately below that village, only one mile from Cambridge, which has lately been removed. The spirit of adventure seldom prompted the solitary mariners of those frail vessels to burst its frowning barriers.