Firth of Forth

The Firth of Forth is a dour, great inlet where the tide rushes in and out from the North Sea at great velocity and where the sixth longest bridge in the world supplies "see-ers" with a "sight." Britain's battle fleet uses it as a base. Scotsmen, particularly Edinburghers who dwell near its troubled expanse, boast of its majesty and dangers. But few think of swimming across it; and none of those who have tried have ever succeeded--until last week. Then W. E. Barnie, an Edinburgh science teacher, girded up his loins, plunged in at Burntisland, on the North side, struggled for 4 hours and 10 minutes with swirling tide rips and deadly cold patches, stumbled ashore at Granton, on the South side. A direct line from Burtisland to Granton is only six miles; Barnie covered ten, owing to the currents.

The English Channel, the most widely advertised and popular of natatorial obstacles, is 22.5 miles wide where swimmers attempt it--Dover to Calais or vice versa--and a swimmer's course is often 56 miles long through the shifting tides. It has been traversed several times, most recently and fastest (16 hr. 33 min.) by Enrique Tirabocchi, Argentine porpoise-man. Channel water, however, is warmer than the Firth of Forth. (TIME, Aug. 20, 1923). The Hellespont, between Gallipoli Peninsula and Asia Minor--famed in fable for being negotiated by Leander, amorous Greek, and in romance because Lord Byron did it for all his maimed leg--is a paddle of only three miles.