inments for the new Boating Association were
given, and for a time the new sport flourished. But the nautical
resources of the Huron and Whitmore Lake were all too slender and after
a few years the enthusiasm died, though occasionally talk of a Varsity
crew springs up.

Tennis came into vogue about 1880. An Association was established as
early as 1883 and we have it, once more on the _Chronicle's_ carefully
qualified authority, that "athletics in general have given way to lawn
tennis to a certain extent." The Tennis Association was merged, with the
other separate athletic bodies, into the general Athletic Association in
1890, and by 1897 when Michigan first participated in the Western
Inter-collegiate tennis matches, the members of the team were awarded
the Varsity letter. Henry T. Danforth, '03; H.P. Wherry, '03; R.G. St.
John, '06_l_, and Reuben G. Hunt, '06_l_, were members of the four teams
which led the West in the years from 1901 to 1904, the last championship
until 1919, when Walter Wesbrook, '21, captured the singles, and with
Nicholas Bartz, Jr., '20, the doubles at Chicago.

The return to the Conference also gave a great impetus to the
development of basket ball as a major sport. Though Michigan's first
teams have not been remarkably successful, the players are now awarded
the Varsity "M," and interest in the contests is growing rapidly, partly
because the game itself is fast and exciting, demanding even greater
quickness and stamina than football, and partly because the season fills
in the interval between the end of the football and the opening of the
baseball and track seasons in the spring. A swimming team has also been
organized under a competent coach, but it is probable that no great
progress will be made until the completion of the tanks in the Union and
the Gymnasium.

The women of the University have not been far behind the men in the
development of athletics. Not only have they always been loyal
supporters of the University in inter-collegiate contests, but they have
their own organized athletic interests which have been no small factor
in the development of the distinctive life of the women in the
University. This has come largely through Barbour Gymnasium, completed
in 1897, and the Palmer Athletic Field for women, which was purchased
some twelve years later.

The Gymnasium, as its name implies, was largely made possible through a
gift of property in Detroit valued at $25,000, by the Hon. Levi