and though it seems a far cry it may be that our word sled has
been developed from it. At least both begin with S.

*****

Elaborate books have been written about "tobogganing" as it has
developed at Davos and St. Moritz, in the Alps. The Swiss
Schlittli seems to be much like what the Yankee boys call a
"girl's sled," a board seat set high on skeleton runners, that I
fancy were at first of the plain wood but later came to be shod
with flat iron. On this the coaster sits and goes down the hill
sedately, feet foremost. Thus the early Swiss tobogganing was
done, the rider steering by putting out a foot to the right or
left, after the fashion of the small girl today on her similar
sled. Such coasting is done by careful elderly people in St.
Moritz or Davos today, only they use wooden pegs held in either
hand to steer by. The courses on which they coast are short and
straight, modest little coasts such as befit their condition. Then
American sports brought to Switzerland the clipper sled. It easily
outdistanced the Schlittli, and for the swift, winding courses on
which the races were held became the favorite. The clipper sled
was born in America, and millions of boys here have them today.
They are swift, sturdy, and well fitted for the sport. Their solid
wooden runners were long ago shod with flat steel, but for a
generation that has been superseded by spring steel, round
runner-shoes that add to the swiftness most materially.

*****

In 1877 the first of this coasting was done by the English at St.
Moritz, and ever since the courses there have been steadily
improving, and "toboggans" as well. The final word has become a
skeleton frame of steel, the wooden runners being entirely removed
from within the shoe and the rider occupying a thin board hung
between the upper frames. The under part of the heavy steel runner
is grooved so as to grip the ice, and the whole "rocks" after the
style of the old-fashioned "rocker" skate. Thus on a curve the
rider, putting his weight aft is able to turn more rapidly without
the sled losing its grip on the ice beneath. On these the Swiss
coasters negotiate S curves at surprising speed, and are estimated
to reach sixty or even seventy miles an hour on the straight
stretches of the world-famous course. As might be supposed by any
one who coasts, this speed is not made with the rider sitting on
his sled girl fashion. Long ago the American visitors taught the
St. Moritz coasters that the w