108 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. III. 
as it has been somewhat loosely described 1 , which would 
be too violent a motion for so vast a body; but a shuffle, 
that he can increase at pleasure to a pace as rapid as 
that of a man at full speed, but which he cannot main- 
tain for any considerable distance. 
It is to the structure of the knee-joint that the ele- 
phant is indebted for his singular facility in ascending 
and descending steep aclivities, climbing rocks and tra- 
versing precipitous ledges, where even a mule dare not 
1 Menageries, Sfc. "The elephant," 
ch. i. 
Sir Charles Bell, in his essay 
on The Rand and its Mechanism, 
■which forms one of the "Bridge- 
water Treatises," has exhibited the 
reasons deducible from organisation, 
which show the incapacity of the 
elephant to spring or leap like the 
horse and other animals whose 
structure is designed to facilitate 
agility and speed. In them the 
various bones of the shoulder and 
fore limbs, especially the clavicle 
and humerus, are set at such an 
angle, that the shock in descending 
is modified, and the joints and 
sockets protected from the injury 
occasioned by concussion. But in 
the elephant, where the weight of 
the body is immense, the bones of 
the leg, in order to present solidity 
and strength to sustain it, are built 
in one firm and perpendicular 
column ; instead of being placed 
somewhat obliquely at their points 
of contact. Thus whilst the force 
of the weight in descending is 
broken and distributed by this 
arrangement in the case of the 
horse ; it would be so concentrated 
in the elephant as to endanger 
every joint from the toe to the 
shoulder. 
