228 



NATURE 



[July 6, 1882 



currency. In any case there was a very distinct maximum 

 of failures in 187S, succeeded by a sudden reduction, and 

 it occurred at a time differing by less than a year from 

 the corresponding collapse in England. In the Dominion 

 of Canada there was a very strongly marked maximum of 

 failures at the same time as in England, namely, in 1879. 

 The theory of the solar-commercial cycle and of the 

 partially oriental origin of decennial crises has received 

 such confirmation as time yet admits of. I am, however, 

 fully alive to the weight of some of the difficulties and 

 objections which have been brought forward against the 

 theory. These objections are far from being conclusive, 

 and I may hope to give them in due time a satisfactory 

 answer. But such answer must involve more detail than 

 can be put into a brief article. 



W. Stanley Jevons 



CONVENTIONAL REPRESENTA TION OF THE 

 HORSE IN MOTION 



IT is of interest to analyse the reason why artists repre- 

 sent a galloping horse in a way unlike any of its real 

 attitudes, as they have been photographed by Mr. Muy- 

 bridge, and why the critical public have so long acquiesced 

 in these incorrect representations without remonstrance. 

 Partly, no doubt, it is owing to prevalent errors of con- 

 ception which govern the judgment in its interpretation of 

 a movement that is hard to follow. An excellent instance 

 of this is to be seen in the Academy, in the diploma 

 picture of Mr. Riviere, R A., entitled "The King drinks." 

 It is a lion lapping water in the wrong way, by spooning 

 his tongue outwards and upwards instead of curling it 

 backwards, like the fingers of the half-closed hand when 

 the knuckles are to the front, an action that may be con- 

 veniently studied in the kitten. The error of preconceived 

 ideas partly explains the conventionally extended figure 

 of the galloping horse ; but I find the latter to be largely 

 justified by the shape of the blur made on the eye by his 

 rapid and various movements. I wish I could reproduce 

 on a scale, however small, any one of the many plates 

 published in "The Horse in Motion;" but it appears 

 that the copyright of the photographs is disputed, and 

 there are difficulties in the way of doing so, and I must 

 malie shift without them. 



I find that taking the attitudes of the galloping horse, 

 Phryne, as an example, published in Plate XVI. of the 

 book just mentioned, that her stride has the duration of 

 about six-tenths of a second, and that it has been phot> 



A contains six attitudes, in which the legs are crumpled 

 below the body. 



B contains four attitudes, in which one or both of the 

 hind legs are on the ground, and the fore legs are pawing 

 in the air. 



C contains five attitudes, in which both the fore and 

 hind legs are extended. 



D also contains five attitudes ; the hind legs are flung 

 back and the fore legs are on the ground. 



graphically analysed into twenty momentary attitudes. 

 Also, that these may be arranged in four groups, which I 

 will call A, B, C, and D. I have made photographic 

 composites of each of these groups, and copies of them 

 by the wood engraver arc annexed. 



G is the general composite of all the attitudes. 



It will be observed that in the general composite the 

 blur somewhat justifies the conventional representation, 

 because though the lower parts of the limbs leave no 



definite hrage at all (less so in the photograph than in 

 the engraving), the upper portions have a distinctly 

 outflung look, and as the artist lies under the same 

 unhappy necessity that plagues the geographer, who, 



when he has to put down a lake or river on the map 

 must put it scmcicJtcn, although its real position may be 

 uncertain, so the artist thinks he must put the lower parts 

 of the four legs of the horse somewhere, and he is guided 



