| Strength of the weakest men | 125lbs. |
| Strength of very strong men | 400 |
| Strength of Topham | 800 |
The weight of Topham was about 200.
One of the most remarkable and inexplicable experiments relative to the strength of the human frame, which you have yourself seen and admired, is that in which a heavy man is raised with the greatest facility, when he is lifted up the instant that his own lungs and those of the persons who raise him are inflated with air. This experiment was, I believe, first shown in England a few years ago by Major H. who saw it performed in a large party at Venice, under the direction of an officer of the American Navy. As Major H. performed it more than once in my presence, I shall describe as nearly as possible the method which he prescribed. The heaviest person in the party lies down upon two chairs, his legs being supported by the one and his back by the other. Four persons, one at each leg and one at each shoulder, then try to raise him, and they find his dead weight to be very great, from the difficulty they experience in supporting him. When he is replaced in the chair, each of the four persons takes hold of the body as before, and the person to be lifted gives two signals by clapping his hands. At the first signal he himself and the four lifters begin to draw a long and full breath, and when the inhalation is completed, or the lungs filled, the second signal is given for raising the person from the chair. To his own surprise and that of his bearers, he rises with the greatest facility, as if he were no heavier than a feather. On several occasions I have observed that when one of the bearers performs his part ill, by making the inhalation out of time, the part of the body which he tries to raise is left as it were behind. As you have repeatedly seen this experiment, and have performed the part both of the load and of the bearer, you can testify how remarkable the effects appear to all parties, and how complete is the conviction, either that the load has been lightened, or the bearer strengthened by the prescribed process.
At Venice, the experiment was performed in a much more imposing manner. The heaviest man in the party was raised and sustained upon the points of the fore-fingers of six persons. Major H. declared that the experiment would not succeed if the person lifted were placed upon a board, and the strength of the individuals applied to the board. He conceived it necessary that the bearers should communicate directly with the body to be raised. I have not had an opportunity of making any experiments relative to these curious facts; but whether the general effect is an illusion, or the result of known or of new principles, the subject merits a careful investigation.
Among the remarkable exhibitions of mechanical strength and dexterity, we may enumerate that of supporting pyramids of men. This exhibition is a very ancient one. It is described, though not very clearly, by the Roman poet Claudian, and it has derived some importance in modern times, in consequence of its having been performed in various parts of Great Britain by the celebrated traveller Belzoni, before he entered upon the more estimable career of an explorer of Egyptian antiquities. The simplest form of this feat consists in placing a number of men on each other’s shoulders, so that each row consists of a man fewer till they form a pyramid terminating in a single person, upon whose head a boy is sometimes placed with his feet upwards.
Among the displays of mechanical dexterity, though not grounded on any scientific principle, may be mentioned the art of walking along the ceiling of an apartment with the head downwards. This exhibition, which we have witnessed in one of the London Theatres, never failed to excite the wonder of the audience, although the movements of the inverted performer were not such as to inspire us with any high ideas of the mechanism by which they were effected. The following was probably the method by which the performer was carried along the ceiling. Two parallel grooves or openings were made in the ceiling at the same distance as the foot-tracks of a person walking on sand. These grooves were narrower than the human foot, so as to permit a rope, or chain, or strong wire, attached to the feet of the performer, to pass through the ceiling, where they were held by two or more persons above it. In this way the inverted performer might be carried along by a sliding or shuffling motion, similar to that which is adopted in walking in the dark, and in which the feet are lifted from the ground. A more regular motion, however, might be produced by a contrivance for attaching the rope or chain to the sole of the foot, at each step, and subsequently detaching it. In this way, when the performer is pulled against the ceiling by his left foot, he would lift his right foot, and having made a step with it, and planted it against the grooves, the rope would be attached to it, and when the rope was detached from the left foot, it would make a similar step, while the right foot was pulled against the ceiling. These effects might be facilitated and rendered more natural, by attaching to the body or to the feet of the performer strong wires invisible to the audience, and by using friction-wheels, if a sliding motion only is required.
Fig. 60.
A more scientific method of walking upon the ceiling is suggested by those beautiful pneumatic contrivances by which insects, fishes, and even some lizards are enabled to support the weight of their bodies against the force of gravity. The house-fly is well known to have the power of walking in an inverted position upon the ceilings of rooms, as well as upon the smoothest surfaces. In this case the fly does not rest upon its legs, and must therefore adhere to the ceiling, either by some glutinous matter upon its feet, or by the aid of some apparatus given it for that purpose. In examining the foot of the fly with a powerful microscope, it is found to consist of two concavities, as shown in Figs. 60 and 61, the first of which is copied from a drawing by G. Adams, published in 1746, and the second by J. C. Keller, a painter at Nuremberg, who drew it for a work published in 1766. The author of this work maintains that these concavities are only used when the fly moves horizontally, and that, when it moves perpendicularly or on the ceiling, they are turned up out of the way, and the progressive motion is effected by fixing the claws shown in the figure into the irregularities of the surface upon which the fly moves, whether it is glass, porcelain, or any other substance. Sir Everard Home, however, supposes, with great reason, that these concave surfaces are (like the leathern suckers used by children for lifting stones) employed to form a vacuum, so that the foot adheres, as it were, by suction to the ceiling, and enables the insect to support itself in an inverted position.
Fig. 61.