muscles which determine the force of projection that enables the body to spring up from the ground, and perform the desired movement, overcoming the resistance of the weight of the body. The "Encyclopædia” of Diderot and D'Alembert says, “That in order to calculate the force of all the muscles brought into play when a man resting upon his feet leaps up to the height of two feet or so, we ought to remember that he weighs 150 lbs., and that the forces necessary to raise the body to the height mentioned act with 2,000 times greater force, or with a force equivalent to 300,000 lbs.

But it is especially among animals that the study of the mechanism on which leaping depends is most interesting. The greater the length of the hind legs, the longer will be the leaps which the body is able to execute. It is thus that we are able to explain the prodigious and rapid jumps of the squirrel, the hare, and above all the jerboa. This last quadruped, whose hind extremities are very long, does not walk upon four feet, but carries on locomotion by jumping upon two. Nothing is more curious than to see him when he is suddenly surprised by the hunter in the midst of tall corn, over the ears of which he leaps, appearing and disappearing like a will-o'-the-wisp, the most accomplished pursuer experiencing great difficulty in catching him. extremity he can get over ten feet at a single bound; and în his ordinary movements he traverses at least three or four feet at a leap. No animal is in this respect so highly gifted as the frog; and certain serpents also throw themselves forward to great distances. It is by an analogous movement that fishes, as the trout, salmon, &c., swimming in streams broken up by cataracts, are able to surmount all the obstacles they meet in ascending them.

In

The whale jumps from fifteen to twenty feet out of the sea,

more important competitions had taken place in running, wrestling, and pugilism. Homer makes no mention of it among the games of the Greeks under the walls of Troy, but it was in force among the Phocians, a frivolous race, fond of good living, dancing, and dress.

The most agile runners were always the best jumpers.

Thus Phayllus of Croton, who made the wonderful leap referred to above, was an indefatigable runner, and the Basques, who were also remarkable for swiftness in running, vaulted splendidly, either with or without the aid of poles. "He runs and leaps marvellously," was a frequent expression in ancient France in speaking of the Basque lackeys. The Spaniards are the cousins of the Basques, and partake of their tastes and capabilities; and Colonel Amoros, a great judge in these matters, puts the English in the same category. "An Englishman," said he, in his "Manual of

Physical Education" (Paris, 1830), "leapt the ditch of the garden of Mousseau, which is thirty feet wide, and we find

Leaping with Halteres.
(From a carving-Caylus.)

Leaping over Javelins.
(From a carving-Caylus.)

among this people as good long leapers as among the Spaniards. The best of my pupils did sixteen feet and at

High Leap. (From a painted vase in the Hamilton collection.

Madrid a young lad of thirteen years leapt eighteen feet.” In the seventeenth century lived a clever Englishman,

J

William Stokes, who combined theory with practice, and who boasted that he had mastered the true principles of the art of leaping. These he expounded in a book originally published at Oxford, in 1652, called "The Vaulting Master." According to his method, a number of remarkable performers were trained; among others, a famous leaper, Simpson, who exhibited his powers at the fair of St. Bar

The Game of the Greased Bottle. (After Raponi.)

tholomew. Strutt, the author of a standard work on the games and amusements of the people of England, says that the most extraordinary jumper of whom he had any record was one named Ireland, of the county of York, who was eighteen years of age, six feet high, and of most prepossessing appearance. He leapt over nine horses ranged side by side, and over the man who was mounted upon the middle one. A cord, which was extended before him at the . height of fourteen feet above the ground, he cleared with a single effort. With a furious bound he crushed with his foot a bladder suspended sixteen feet above the ground,

and on another occasion cleared a waggon, covered with an awning, with a simple leap.

If Strutt had travelled in India he would have seen

High Leap. (From an ancient carving.)

stranger things than those, for the Orientals are endowed with astonishing suppleness of joints. Colonel Ironside, who at the beginning of the century lived in India, and

Leaping with Pole. (From a vase.)

closely observed the feats of the jugglers, met in his travels an old white-bearded man, who, with one leap, sprung over the back of an enormous elephant, flanked by five or six