288 THE PERFECT HORSE. 



minute, then, the limb of a horse whose foot carries one 

 kilogram makes an effort necessary to raise, kilogram 

 after kilogram, a weight of GO kilograms. For the 

 four limbs, this weight in a minute is represented by 

 60x4 = 240 kilograms; for the four feet during an 

 hour the weight is 14,000 kilograms; and for four 

 hours, the mean duration of a day's work in these om- 

 nibuses, the total amount of weight raised has reached 

 the respectable figure of 57,000 kilograms. ' But the 

 movement communicated to these 57,000 kilograms 

 represents an expenditure of power employed by the 

 motor without any useful result ; and, as the motor is a 

 living one, this expense of strength represents an ex- 

 haustion, or, if you like it better, a degree of fatigue, 

 proportioned to the effort necessary for its manifestation. 

 This calculation is most simple, and readily understood. 

 It is to be noted, nevertheless, that I have omitted a 

 considerable fact; which is, that the weights I have 

 tabulated arc situated at the extremities of the limbs, 

 and that the arms of the levers on which the muscles 

 act to raise them, being infinitely shorter than those of 

 the physiological resistance to which these weights are 

 added, the intensity of their action ought, therefore, to 

 be singularly increased. But to measure this intensity 

 of action would require a mathematical aptitude which 

 I do not possess. I will not, therefore, dwell on this 

 point, notwithstanding its importance ; and am content 

 to signalize it. Otherwise, the figures I present speak 

 for themselves, and tell us that the diminution in the 



