64 THE HUMAN BODY. 



and its oscillation more rapid; at the same time the greater 

 flexion gives more force to the extension, and the impulsion 

 forward is increased; and more still, extension acts in a direc- 

 tion still more inclined, which results in a lengthening of 

 the step. The motion is also increased by the extension of 

 the leg resting on the ground while the other oscillates, in 

 such a way that when the latter touches the ground the 

 former detaches itself in order to swing in its turn. In 

 walking quickly the body rests upon the ground only by one 

 foot at a time. 



When walking, and especially when walking rapidly, the 

 arms accompany with their isochronous oscillations the 

 movements of the lower limbs, and contribute to maintain the 

 equilibrium: indeed it is next to impossible to walk quickly 

 when the arms, from any cause whatever, cannot oscillate. 



According to the experiments of the brothers Weber, the 

 speed of a man of ordinary stature is, in rapid walking, about 

 10,267 yards per hour. This speed could not long be main- 

 tained, and must be considered as exceptional. In ordinary 

 walking the speed is nearly four miles an hour, and can 

 be kept up for a long period But exercise and a special 

 aptitude for it enable some men to walk great distances in a 

 relatively short space of time. Trained walkers have gone 

 seventy-five miles in twenty hours, and walked the distance of 

 thirty-seven miles at the rate of five miles an hour. The moun- 

 taineers of the Alps are generally good walkers, and some 

 of them are not less remarkable for endurance than for 

 speed. Jacques Balmat, who was the first to reach the sum- 

 mit of Mont Blanc, at sixteen years of age could walk from 

 the hamlet of the Pe'lerins to the mountain of La Cote in 

 two hours a distance which the best trained travellers re- 

 quired from five to six hours to get over. At the time of 

 his last attempt to reach the top of Mont Blanc, this same 

 guide, then twenty years old, passed six days and four nights 

 without sleeping or reposing a single moment. One of his 

 sons, Edward Balmat, left Paris to join his regiment at 

 Genoa; he reached Chamonix the fifth day at evening, 

 having walked 340 miles. After resting two days he 

 set off again for Genoa, where he arrived in two days. 



