Locomotion

“ This style of locomotion rather startles you at first, not only on account of its novelty, but also by reason of the indifferent equilibrium you are able to maintain. Jostled over the pavement, threatened every moment to see yourself projected into space, at a tangent, you involuntarily grasp the nickel handle which is there for that purpose, just as a tyro horseman instinctively clutches the mane of his steed. ”

“ It seems to me that the power of locomotion is a sine qua non for active development of type, as it necessarily sharpens the wits by bringing fresh experiences and unlooked-for adventures to the creature. ”

“ Yet it is to be noticed that the earliest methods of locomotion, other than those purely muscular, such as walking and riding, knew nothing of wheels. Such methods depended primarily upon the enormously significant discovery that a man could drag a heavier weight than he could carry, and what applied to a man also applied to a beast. Possibly such discovery followed on the mere observation of objects being carried down the stream of some river, and perhaps a rudely constructed raft should be considered to be the earliest form of vehicle. ”

“ A number of valuable books have been written on the fundamental principles of locomotion by means of walking, riding upon animate beings, flying and creeping, and also upon all kinds of inanimate or mechanical motors, but little has been said about physical properties underlying the intervention of a wheel between the body of man and the surface to be travelled over, the motor being man himself. ”

“ No; there is no better mode of locomotion. On the water there is no dust; you do not run, you skim along, and the slow progress of the skiff gives you time to enjoy the varied aspects of the country, studded as it is with clusters of sombre and silent trees. ”

“ Chief of these was the act of locomotion; that is, the means by which we get from one place to another, an act which is, of course, of prime importance in maintaining life, since it is concerned both with the securing of food and the escaping of harm. Locomotion is performed in a number of different ways; in ourselves, walking, running, leaping, swimming, riding a bicycle are all forms of locomotion. Any of these acts, as stated in Chapter VIII, requires the accurate timing and accurate grading of the contractions of a great many different muscles. ”

“ It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the quickness and graceful address of her movements: they may indeed be termed aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her progress the branches among which she exhibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and arms are the sole organs of locomotion; her body hanging as if suspended by a rope, sustained by one hand (the right for example) she launches herself, by an energetic movement, to a distant branch, which she catches with the left hand ”

“ Meanwhile the climbing and leaping from branch to branch, the measuring with the eye of distances and strength of branches, the power of grasping the right point at the right instant, and all the complicated series of movements combined in this form of locomotion furnished a marvellous set of exercises not only for the muscles but for the higher centres in the cortex of the brain. ”

“ He would allow six or eight to enter the car and ride—sixteen feet forward, around the mainmast, and sixteen feet back again—and it was laughable to watch the gravity of their faces as they held fast to the edge, bravely resolving to endure the dangers of this wonderful mode of locomotion. Not one had ever ridden in an automobile before, and although Moit merely allowed it to crawl over its confined course, the ride was a strange and fascinating experience to them. ”

“ You are aware that locomotion is one of the distinguishing characteristics of living beings, and is indispensable for them in their progress towards perfection. As they require food and drink to supply animal waste, so they require locomotion, in order to approach that which is good for them and in harmony with their nature, and to escape from what is injurious and contrary to their nature. ”

“ That which can have been produced abruptly is the exterior condition from which would have resulted, for an anthropoid race of climbers, the necessity of adopting habitually a mode of locomotion which it was already capable of utilizing occasionally. ”

“ Not being a crow, however, nor fitted up with an apparatus for flying,—destitute even of a balloon,—I am compelled to adopt the means of locomotion which the bounty of God or the ingenuity of man affords me, and to spend a somewhat longer time in transit to my destination. ”

“ Flying is simply swimming through the air and crawling, as a worm or snake, is gliding, like swimming. Space ships swim, too, after a fashion. Boats swim through the sea and sleds swim on ice. Therefore we have only three kinds of locomotion: Legs, wheels and sleds. Another might revolutionize everything. ”

“ In other words, the point, or primary germ of extension, corresponds, according to the theory of M. Pétin, with the fulcrum, or primary condition of locomotion; the line, first and simplest form of extension, corresponds with locomotion on the surface of the earth, where, owing to topographic inequalities, and other obstacles, locomotion can take place only in its first and simplest mode—namely, in a linear direction ”

“ We have made two successful steps, and have only to make a third to complete that wonderfully perfect and very comprehensive system of locomotion which we behold in nature. Until this third step is taken, our artificial appliances for transit can only be considered imperfect and partial. ”

“ Finally, in seeing animals wanting effective means of locomotion established in limited ranges, we are led to believe that each species at first lived only on some very small part of the globe, and that the varying distribution of individuals results chiefly from the enlargement of locomotive powers. ”

“ It is by the mode of locomotion of the climber that the hand became, little by little, apt for the function of prehension, then for the function of manipulation, and it is by virtue of the complete emancipation here supposed of the superior member with reference to locomotion that the functions of prehension and of manipulation of the hand have been able to acquire adaptations the most varied. ”

“ The choice of locomotion lay between a pillion-ride on horseback, in fair weather or foul, as it might be, and a clumsy springless wooden coach occupying a good week upon the road, provided all went well, and that the huge wheels did not wedge themselves into the ruts or the mire of the King’s highway, or the Flanders mares did not stumble or cast a shoe five miles from a smithy. ”

“ But when all the problems of mechanical locomotion have been solved, there will be no further use for our physical and mental restlessness, with its nomad instinct; and our science of motion and locomotion having been learned and adopted by the round-headed Turanian races, ours may be destined to die out or become absorbed in theirs, our rôle on earth being accomplished. ”

“ The locomotion of animals, as exemplified in walking, swimming, and flying, is a subject of permanent interest to all who seek to trace in the creature proofs of beneficence and design in the Creator. All animals, however insignificant, have a mission to perform—a destiny to fulfil ”

“ His first attempts at locomotion are checked; he is put in leading-strings, he is carefully guarded from the out-door world, from the air that would invigorate his lungs, from the sports that would develop his muscles. ”

“ We need not dwell much longer on the journey. Enough has been given to enable every bright boy and clever girl who reads these pages to see how it is that travellers get along in a land where only the canoe in summer and the dog-train in winter afford them any possibilities for locomotion. Here are no locomotives, but lots of locomotion, and the most of it is done on foot, as often it is quite enough for the dogs to drag the heavy loads through the deep snow and in the long, tangled forests, without carrying an additional man or boy. ”

“ These are the instruments which confer the power of rapid locomotion. They are constructed in such a manner that they are capable of great expansion when struck in a downward direction; if, in this action, we except the slight hollow which occurs on the under side they almost become two planes. ”

“ They held that locomotion consisted in the translation of each atom of a body from one point to the next one; accordingly the velocity of one body in motion cannot be greater than that of another body. ”

“ For land animals there is no question but what [154] legs are the most perfect system possible, but in terrestrial locomotion by machinery, not necessarily in one piece, wheels are found to be much more effective and efficient. ”

“ For if locomotion is a movement from to there, it, too, has differences in kind-flying, walking, leaping, and so on. And not only so, but in walking itself there are such differences; for the whence and whither are not the same in the whole racecourse and in a part of it, nor in one part and in another, nor is it the same thing to traverse this line and that; for one traverses not only a line but one which is in a place, and this one is in a different place from that. ”

“ Flight is a purely mechanical problem. It is warped in and out with the other animal movements, and forms a link of a great chain of motion which drags its weary length over the land, through the water, and, notwithstanding its weight, through the air. To understand flight, it is necessary to understand walking and swimming, and it is with a view to simplifying our conceptions of this most delightful form of locomotion that the present work is mainly written. The chapters on walking and swimming naturally lead up to those on flying. ”

“ For in all the three forms of locomotion which we have attempted {32} to study, alike in swimming, in flight and in walking, the general result, attained under very different conditions and arrived at by very different modes of reasoning, is in every case that the velocity tends to vary as the square root of the linear dimensions of the organism. ”

“ As the locomotion of the higher animals, to which my remarks more particularly apply, is in all cases effected by levers which differ in no respect from those employed in the arts, it may be useful to allude to them in a passing way. ”

“ I propose first to analyse the natural movements of walking, swimming, and flying, after which I hope to be able to show that certain of these movements may be reproduced artificially. The locomotion of animals depends upon mechanical adaptations found in all animals which change locality. These adaptations are very various, but under whatever guise they appear they are substantially those to which we resort when we wish to move bodies artificially. ”

“ Things that increase your speed of locomotion, or that move you in unusual ways, as bicycle, skate, sled, rocking-horse, swing, seesaw, merry-go-round. Here belong also such sports as hopping, skipping, jumping, dancing, skipping rope, vaulting, leapfrog, whirling, somersault. The dizzy sensation resulting from stimulation of the semicircular canals is evidently pleasant to young children, and some of their sports seem aimed at securing a good measure of it. ”

“ SPEED AND POWER OF MODERN STEAMSHIPS. In these days of feverish activity in every avenue of business, when even leisure has come to be observed at a much more accelerated tempo than formerly, speed in locomotion would seem to be the first desideratum, not only on shore but afloat as well. ”

“ As the limits of the present volume will not admit of my going into the several arrangements by which locomotion is attained in the animal kingdom as a whole, I will only describe those movements which illustrate in a progressive manner the several kinds of progression on the land, and on and in the water and air. ”

“ Were other means lacking, the progress of the human race might be pretty accurately gauged by its modes of locomotion. On such a basis of classification there might be a pedestrian period, a pilgrim period, a saddle period, a road-wain period, a stage-coach period, and a railway period. ”

“ Since the chariot-races, of which Greek and Roman antiquity were passionately fond, to our modern horse-races, men have never ceased to pursue with a lively interest the problem of rapid locomotion. What tests and comparisons have not been made to discover what race has most speed, what other most bottom, what crossings, what training give reason to expect still more speed? ”

“ In some of the classes locomotion is performed by means of these spines or prickles, which serve as legs. In others, movement is carried on by suckers and tubes as in the star-fishes, these tubes being also the means whereby the animal obtains its food. ”

“ Certain phases of the facts of Animal Locomotion will alone be treated upon, as demonstrated by photographic research.
The illustrations and condensed definitions of the various gaits were prepared by the Author for the "Standard Dictionary." Before studying these it is essential that the meaning of the terms step and stride should be distinctly understood.
A STEP is an act of progressive animal motion, in which one of the supporting members of the body is thrust in the direction of the motion and the support transferred, wholly, or in part, from one member to another. ”

“ Thus in animal mechanics we have to consider the various orders of levers, the pulley, the centre of gravity, specific gravity, the resistance of solids, semi-solids, fluids, etc. As the laws which regulate the locomotion of animals are essentially those which regulate the motion of bodies in general, it will be necessary to consider briefly at this stage the properties of matter when at rest and when moving. ”