156 THE HOUSE OF AMERICA. 



diagonal legs of the trotting horse act in perfect unison in per- 

 forming the function of one leg. In the mechanism of the gait 

 then that is midway between the walk and the gallop there is no 

 difference in results, nor distinction in the economy of motion, 

 except that the pacer uses the lateral legs as one, and the trotter 

 the diagonal legs as one. In use, there is a vertical distinction, 

 if that term should be allowed, between the gait of the pacer and 

 the trotter. The action of the pacer is lower and more gliding 

 which fits him for the saddle, while the action of the trotter is 

 higher and more bounding which makes him more desirable as a 

 harness horse. In the processes of inter-breeding to the fastest, 

 this distinction, if it be a distinction, seems to be coming less 

 real, or at least less observable. 



While the essential oneness of the pace and the trot is indi- 

 ated above from the mechanism and unity of the two gaits, 

 there is a great mountain of evidence to be developed when we 

 reach the consideration of breeding subjects, in which we will 

 meet multitudes of fast trotters getting fast pacers, and fast 

 pacers getting fast trotters; fast pacers changed over to fast trot- 

 ters and fast trotters changed over to fast pacers, and the final evi- 

 dence that speed at the one gait means speed at the other. Hav- 

 ing briefly explained what a pacer is, it is now in order to take 

 up the question of whence he came. 



On the summit of the Acropolis, in Athens, stand the ruins of 

 the Parthenon, a magnificent temple erected to the goddess 

 Minerva. The building was commenced in the year B.C. 437, 

 and was completed five years afterward. All the statuary was 

 the work of the famous Phidias and his scholars, made from 

 Pentelic marble. This noted building resisted all the ravages 

 of time, and had, in turn, been converted into a Christian temple 

 and a Turkish mosque. In 1676 it was still entire, but in 1687 

 Athens was besieged by the Venetians, and the Parthenon was 

 liopelessly wrecked. As a ruin it became the prey of the Turks 

 and all other devastators, and in order to save something of what 

 remained of its precious works of art, Lord Elgin, about the year 

 1800, brought home to England some portions of the frieze of 

 the temple, with other works of Phidias, in marble, sold them to 

 the government, and they are preserved in the British Museum. 

 This frieze is a most interesting subject to study, not only as a 

 specimen of Greek art of the period of Pericles, but as a historic 

 record of the type and action of the Greek horses of that day. 



