TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 863 



products of combustion are extracted therefrom and discharged into the atmo- 

 sphere. 



Mastication, which is the first process in the alimentary system, is, or rather 

 should be, a perfect system of cutting up and grinding, and to assist and save 

 animal, and especially human, mastication is the chief aim and object of all the 

 gigantic milling establishments of modern times. The later alimentary processes 

 are rather chemical than mechanical, but still the successive muscular contractions, 

 whereby the contents of the canal are forced through their intricate course, are 

 distinctly mechanical, and may have suggested the action of various mechanisms 

 which are used in the arts to operate on plastic materials, and cause them to flow 

 into new forms and directions. 



The superiority of man to the lower animals can only have become conspicuous 

 and decided when he began to use his inventive faculties and to fashion weapons 

 and implements of a more eflicient kind than the sticks and stones which they also 

 occasionally use. 



But human races and individuals were never equally endowed by nature. Some 

 individuals would have greater inventive powers than others, and these and their 

 posterity would gradually become dominant races. Large masses of mankind are 

 still more or less in the position of primeval man, which, if we accept the conclu- 

 sions of Darwin, Lubbock, and other modern scientists, we must regard as one of 

 barbarism. For they are still without tools, appliances, and clothes, except of the 

 most elementary kinds, and mechanical science might almost be non- existent, so 

 far as they are concerned.* 



It would obviously be impossible for me to treat of or call attention even to an 

 infinitesimal extent to the results of mechanical science which surround us now so 

 profusely, and which make our life so different from that of primeval man ; and, 

 even if it were possible, it would be quite unnecessary. We have all grown up 

 in a mechanical age. We are so familiarised with artificial aids that we have come 

 to regard them as part of our natural environment, and their occasional absence 

 impresses us far more than their habitual presence. 



I propose, with your leave, to proceed to the consideration of how far man is, 

 in his natural condition, and has become by aid of mechanical science, able to 

 compete successfully with other and specially endowed animals, each in its own 

 sphere of action. 



BODILY POVPEES OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. 



The bodily frame of man is adapted for life and movement only on or near to 

 the surface of the earth. Without mechanical aids he can walk for several hours, 

 at a speed which is ordinarily from 3 to 4 miles per hour. Under exceptional cir- 

 cumstances he has accomplished over 8 miles- in one hour, and an average of 2f 

 miles per hour for 141 hours.^ In running he has covered about 11^ miles in 

 an hour. In water he has proved himself capable of swimming 100 yards at the 

 rate of 3 miles per hour, and 22 miles at rather over 1 mile per hour. He can 

 easily climb the most rugged mountain path and descend the same. He can swarm 

 up a bare pole or a rope, and when of suitable physique and trained from infancy 

 can perform those wonderful feats of strength and agility which we are accustomed 

 to expect from acrobats. He has shown himself able to jump as high as 6 feet 

 2J inches from the ground, and over a horizontal distance of 23 feet 3 inches, and 

 has thrown a cricket-ball as far as 382| feet before it struck the ground.' 



The attitude and action of a man in throwing a stone or a cricket-ball, where 

 he exerts a considerable force at several feet from the ground, to which the re- 

 action has to be transmitted and to which he is in no way fastened, are unequalled 

 in any artificial machine. The similar but contrary action of pulling a rope 

 horizontally, as in ' tug of war ' competitions, is equally remarkable. 



' Mr. H. L. Lapage, M.Inst.C.E., who has just returned from Western Australia, 

 states that he found the natives of both sexes and all ages absolutely nude. 

 ^ WMtaker's Almanack, 1893, p. 39.5. 

 ' Recent pedestrian race from Berlin to Vienna, 

 * Chambers's Encydo^pcedia, ' Athletic Sports.' 



