Observations on Locomotive Action. 253 



which is the same as the force required in the above machines : 

 — the other is the exertion necessary for gathering up and ex- 

 tending the hnibs, and rolUng them on the sockets of the joints, 

 without progressive motion of the body; and is verjrmuch 

 hke that required for mimicking walking without stirring 

 from the place ; and still nearer, if not exactly, like that re- 

 quired when a person is pushed forward and made to walk. 

 And it fatigues from the same causes that throwing about the 

 arms fatigues ; — the alternate contraction and relaxation of the 

 muscles, even without effort, as it may be called, (/. e. without 

 moving any weight except that of the limbs themselves,) ex- 

 hausts their ready power ; changes the set of the fibres ; oc- 

 casions wear and tear ; and by various pressures accelerates 

 the motion of the blood, &c. It is this division of the force 

 I am now speaking of that causes all exertion of animals, 

 whether man or other, in walking, trotting, &c. to be attended 

 with so great a waste of strength. The power of a man to 

 propell himself on a tolerable road would, with proper ma- 

 chinery, be greatly superior to what he has in walking. 



In short, the locomotive powers of animals are at present very 

 disadvantageously exerted, particularly in quick movements. 

 But in all the machinery I have heard of, the inventors, by per- 

 tinaciously clinging to certain erroneous though natural ideas, 

 do nothing but transfer the unnecessary exertion from one 

 part of the body to another ; or else they place the animal in 

 such a position (as in the velocipedes, for instance, where they 

 cling to the idea of the seat on a horse) as to work the muscles 

 in the most inconvenient manner possible. 



In skaiting, instead of having our progress determined by 

 rolling round on our animal wheels, we, besides this rolling- 

 round, slide along the ground, with the limbs relatively at 

 rest, and thereby to a given space have fewer movements of 

 the wheel; though probably the propelling force exerted is 

 nearly the same in both cases. Besides this, in most modes 

 of skaiting the disturbances given to the relative situation of 

 the limbs are not only nutch less frequent, mile for mile, than in 

 walking, but are reduced within much smaller limits. There are, 

 indeed, modes of skaiting in which these disturbances are re- 

 duced almost to nothing — where the legs have no alternate 

 motion of passing each other; but these modes are not the most 

 favourable, i)erhaps, to progress. If our third macliine, in- 

 stead of an impetus for each spoke, had one at every other, or 

 every thirtl, or every fourth, &c. sufficient to carry it round 

 over the intermediate spokes, the indefinite extension given to 

 the space gone over at each effort would be somewhat analo- 

 gous to tiial in skaiting: anti the same may be said if^ in walk- 



