Xviii ■ A SQUARE TROTTER. 



nations to the first card. The subject was Abe Edginton, a horse 

 which has a record of 2:23f, and as square a trotter as can be found. 

 He was probably trotting faster than a 2:24 gait when the pictures 

 were taken, as Marvin sent him along at his best rate. In place of 

 threads stretched across the track, wires were used, sunk below the 

 ground, excepting a width of about two feet on the inner side, in 

 which they were exposed. The sulky wheel, when it touched the 

 wire, established the electi-ical circuit, and with so much greater uni- 

 formity than when threads were used, that there is more exactness, 

 and each picture is a i*epresentation taken in front of the camera. 



No. 1, of course, is the position he was in when opposite the first 

 camera, and it was when the left fore foot and right hind foot were 

 on the ground ; the fore leg only a trifle from the pei-pendicular, the 

 divergence being backward, and the hind leg well advanced under 

 the body, with considerable bend in the hock. But inasmuch as 

 there is .an exact duplication in the stride of the square trotter, in 

 fact two strides in what is universally called one, there is only a 

 necessity for examining one-half of the figures on the chart. And in 

 order to commence about the same period as in that of the race-horse, 

 viz : when the " last efibrt " is made to hurl the body through the 

 air, No. 3 will be 



THE INITIAL. 



In this, the line which divides the vertical spaces 10 and 11 is 

 touched by the eye of the horse, as is also his lower jaw, the mouth 

 being open, doubtless, owing to the tension on the bit. His right 

 hind foot is in space 5, apparently about midway of the space which 

 would bring it 115 inches back from his eye, and nearly at the ex- 

 treme limit of its backward reach. The final propulsive spring has 



