0 A SYSTEM OF FIGURE-SKATING. BEING THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE ART AS DEVELOPED IN ENGLAND, WITH A GLANCE BY H. E. VANDERVELL, AND T. MAXWELL WITHAM, Members of the London Skating Club. London : MACMILLAN AND CO. 1869. [The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.] PREFACE. I AM aware that the title of this work is somewhat ambitious, the difficulty of reducing the art of skating to a system being admitted by all who have given the matter any consideration. Having been accustomed for very many years to invent, make notes, and draw diagrams of combinations of curves, which were the result of an eager search after novelties in this art, the memoranda began gradually to assume some interest, and perhaps importance, for in 1854 they included seven new varieties of the Q figures. Following upon these were the combinations that occur from joining the different kinds of single, double, and treble turns, with opposite curves. In 1860 I added to this record the Rocking Turn, designed for the purpose of completing an entire system of skating; for this important link, uniting the outside forwards to the outside backwards, and the |