No. 1, Charles I. No. 2, William III. No. 3, Nivernois. No. 4, Kevenhuller. No. 5, Ramilies. No. 6, Wellington.
WHY A MAN MEASURES MORE IN THE MORNING THAN IN THE EVENING, &c.
There is an odd phenomenon attending the human body, as singular as common: that a person is shorter standing than lying; and shorter in the evening when he goes to bed, than in the morning when he rises.
This remark was first made in England, and afterwards confirmed at Paris, by M. Morand, a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in France, and by the Abbot Fontana likewise.
The last-mentioned person found, from a year's experience, that ordinarily in the night he gained five or six lines, and lost nearly as much in the day.
The cause of which effect, so ancient, so common, but so lately perceived, proceeds from the different state or condition of the intervertebral annular cartilages.
The vertebræ, or joints of the spine, are kept separate, though joined by particular cartilages, every one of which has a spring. These yield on all sides, without any inflexion on the spine, to the weight of the head and upper extremities; but this is done by very small and imperceptible degrees, and most of all when the upper parts of the body are loaded with any exterior weight. So that a man is really taller after lying some time, than after walking, or carrying a burthen a great while.
For this reason it is that, in the day and evening, while one is sitting or standing, the superior parts of the body that weigh or press upon the inferior, press those elastic annular cartilages, the bony jointed work is contracted, the superior parts of the body descend towards the inferior, and proportionably as one approaches the other, the height of the stature diminishes.
Hence it was, that a fellow enlisting for a soldier, by being measured over-night, was found deficient in height, and therefore refused; but by accident being gauged again the next morning, and coming up to the stature, he was admitted.