Mechanical inventions of the ancients few in number—Ancient and modern feats of strength—Feats of Eckeberg particularly described—General explanation of them—Real feats of strength performed by Thomas Topham—Remarkable power of lifting heavy persons when the lungs are inflated—Belzoni’s feat of sustaining pyramids of men—Deception of walking along the ceiling in an inverted position—Pneumatic apparatus in the foot of the house-fly for enabling it to walk in opposition to gravity—Description of the analogous apparatus employed by the gecko lizard for the same purpose—Apparatus used by the Echineis remora, or sucking-fish.

The mechanical knowledge of the ancients was principally theoretical, and though they seem to have constructed some minor pieces of mechanism which were sufficient to delude the ignorant, yet there is no reason for believing that they had executed any machinery that was capable of exciting much surprise, either by its ingenuity or its magnitude. The properties of the mechanical powers, however, seem to have been successfully employed in performing feats of strength which were beyond the reach even of strong men, and which could not fail to excite the greatest wonder when exhibited by persons of ordinary size.

Firmus, a native of Seleucia, who was executed by the Emperor Aurelian for espousing the cause of Zenobia, was celebrated for his feats of strength. In his account of the life of Firmus, who lived in the third century, Vopiscus informs us, that he could suffer iron to be forged upon an anvil placed upon his breast. In doing this he lay upon his back, and resting his feet and shoulders against some support, his whole body formed an arch, as we shall afterwards more particularly explain. Until the end of the sixteenth century, the exhibition of such feats does not seem to have been common. About the year 1703, a native of Kent, of the name of Joyce, exhibited such feats of strength in London and other parts of England, that he received the name of the second Samson. His own personal strength was very great; but he had also discovered, without the aid of theory, various positions of his body in which men even of common strength could perform very surprising feats. He drew against horses, and raised enormous weights; but as he actually exhibited his power in ways which evinced the enormous strength of his own muscles, all his feats were ascribed to the same cause. In the course of eight or ten years, however, his methods were discovered, and many individuals of ordinary strength exhibited a number of his principal performances, though in a manner greatly inferior to Joyce.

Some time afterwards, John Charles Van Eckeberg, a native of Harzgerode, in Anhalt, travelled through Europe under the appellation of Samson, exhibiting very remarkable examples of his strength. This, we believe, is the same person whose feats are particularly described by Dr. Desaguliers. He was a man of the middle size, and of ordinary strength; and as Dr. Desaguliers was convinced that his feats were exhibitions of skill and not of strength, he was desirous of discovering his methods, and with this view he went to see him, accompanied by the Marquis of Tullibardine, Dr. Alexander Stuart, and Dr. Pringle, and his own mechanical operator. They placed themselves round the German, so as to be able to observe accurately all that he did, and their success was so great that they were able to perform most of the feats the same evening by themselves, and almost all the rest when they had provided the proper apparatus. Dr. Desaguliers exhibited some of the experiments before the Royal Society, and has given such a distinct explanation of the principles on which they depend, that we shall endeavour to give a popular account of them.

1. The performer sat upon an inclined board A B, placed upon a frame C D E, with his feet abutting against the upright board C. Round his loins was placed a strong girdle F G, to the iron ring of which at G was fastened a rope by means of a hook. The rope passed between his legs through a hole in the board C, and several men or two horses, pulling at the other end of the rope, were unable to draw the performer out of his place. His hands at G seemed to pull against the men, but they were of no advantage to him whatever.

2. Another of the German’s feats is shown in Fig. 53. Having fixed the rope above-mentioned to a strong post at A, and made it pass through a fixed iron eye at B, to the ring in his girdle, he planted his feet against the post at B, and raised himself from the ground by the rope, as shown in the figure. He then suddenly stretched out his legs, and broke the rope, falling back on a feather-bed at C, spread out to receive him.

3. In imitation of Firmus, he laid himself down on the ground, as shown in Fig. 54, and when an anvil A was placed upon his breast, a man hammered with all his force the piece of iron B, with a sledge hammer; and sometimes two smiths cut in two with chisels a great cold bar of iron laid upon the anvil. At other times a stone of huge dimensions, half of which is shown at C, was laid upon his belly, and broken with a blow of the great hammer.

4. The performer then placed his shoulders upon one chair and his heels upon another, as in Fig. 55, forming, with his backbone, thighs, and legs, an arch springing from its abutments at A and B. One or two men then stood upon his belly, rising up and down while the performer breathed. A stone, one and a half feet long, one foot broad, and half a foot thick, was then laid upon his belly, and broken by a sledge-hammer; an operation which may be performed with much less danger than when his back touched the ground, as in Fig. 54.

5. His next feat was to lie down on the ground, as in Fig. 56; a man being then placed on his knees, he draws his heels towards his body, and, raising his knees, he lifts up the man gradually, till having brought his knees perpendicularly under him, as in Fig. 57, he raises his own body up, and placing his arms round the man’s legs, he rises with him, and sets him down on some low table or eminence of the same height as his knees. This feat he sometimes performed with two men in place of one.

6. The last and apparently the most wonderful performance of the German is shown in Fig. 58, where he appears to raise a cannon A placed upon a scale, the four ropes of the scale being fixed to a rope or chain attached to his girdle in the manner already described. Previous to the fixing of the ropes, the cannon and scale rest upon two rollers B, C; but when all is ready, the two rollers are knocked from beneath the scale, and the cannon is sustained by the strength of his loins.

The German also exhibited his strength in twisting into a screw a flat piece of iron like A, Fig. 59. He first bent the iron into a right angle as at B, and then wrapping his handkerchief about its broad upper end, he held that end in his left hand, and with his right applied to the other end, twisted about the angular point, as shown at C. Lord Tullibardine succeeded in doing the same thing, and even untwisted one of the irons which the German had twisted.

It would lead into details by no means popular were I to give a minute explanation of the mechanical principles upon which these feats depend. A few general observations will perhaps be sufficient for ordinary readers. The feats Nos. 1, 2, and 6, depend entirely on the natural strength of the bones of the pelvis, which form a double arch, which it would require an immense force to break, by any external pressure directed to the centre of the arch; and as the legs and thighs are capable of sustaining four or five thousand pounds when they stand quite upright, the performer has no difficulty in resisting the force of two horses, or of sustaining the weight of a cannon weighing two or three thousand pounds.

The feat of the anvil is certainly a very surprising one. The difficulty, however, really consists in sustaining the anvil, for when this is done, the effect of the hammering is nothing. If the anvil were a thin piece of iron, or even two or three times heavier than the hammer, the performer would be killed by a few blows; but the blows are scarcely felt when the anvil is very heavy, for the more matter the anvil has, the greater is its inertia, and it is the less liable to be struck out of its place; for when it has received by the blow the whole momentum of the hammer, its velocity will be so much less than that of the hammer, as its quantity of matter is greater. When the blow, indeed, is struck, the man feels less of the weight of the anvil than he did before, because in the reaction of the stone all the parts of it round about the hammer rise towards the blow. This property is illustrated by the well-known experiment of laying a stick with its ends upon two drinking-glasses full of water, and striking the stick downwards in the middle with an iron bar. The stick will in this case be broken without breaking the glasses or spilling the water. But if the stick is struck upwards, as if to throw it up in the air, the glasses will break if the blow be strong, and if the blow is not very quick, the water will be spilt without breaking the glasses.

When the performer supports a man upon his belly as in Fig. 55, he does it by means of the strong arch formed by his backbone, and the bones of his legs and thighs. If there were room for them, he could bear three or four, or, in their stead, a great stone to be broken with one blow.

A number of feats of real and extraordinary strength were exhibited, about a century ago, in London, by Thomas Topham, who was five feet ten inches high, and about thirty-one years of age. He was entirely ignorant of any of the methods for making his strength appear more surprising, and he often performed by his own natural powers what he learned had been done by others by artificial means. A distressing example of this occurred in his attempt to imitate the feat of the German Samson, by pulling against horses. Ignorant of the method which we have already described, he seated himself on the ground with his feet against two stirrups, and by the weight of his body he succeeded in pulling against a single horse; but in attempting to pull against two horses, he was lifted out of his place, and one of his knees was shattered against the stirrups, so as to deprive him of most of the strength of one of his legs. The following are the feats of real strength which Dr. Desaguliers saw him perform:—

1. Having rubbed his fingers with coal-ashes to keep them from slipping, he rolled up a very strong and large pewter plate.

2. Having laid seven or eight short and strong pieces of tobacco-pipe on the first and third finger, he broke them by the force of his middle finger.

3. He broke the bowl of a strong tobacco-pipe placed between his first and third finger, by pressing his fingers together sideways.

4. Having thrust such another bowl under his garter, his legs being bent, he broke it to pieces by the tendons of his hams without altering the bending of his leg.

5. He lifted with his teeth, and held in a horizontal position for a considerable time, a table six feet long, with half a hundred weight hanging at the end of it. The feet of the table rested against his knees.

6. Holding in his right hand an iron kitchen poker three feet long and three inches round, he struck upon his bare left arm, between the elbow and the wrist, till he bent the poker nearly to a right angle.

7. Taking a similar poker and holding the ends of it in his hands, and the middle against the back of his neck, he brought both ends of it together before him, and he then pulled it almost straight again. This last feat was the most difficult, because the muscles which separate the arms horizontally from each other are not so strong as those which bring them together.

8. He broke a rope about two inches in circumference, which was partly wound about a cylinder four inches in diameter, having fastened the other end of it to straps that went over his shoulder.

9. Dr. Desaguliers saw him lift a rolling-stone of about 800lb. weight with his hands only, standing in a frame above it, and taking hold of a frame fastened to it. Hence Dr. Desaguliers gives the following relative view of the strengths of individuals:—

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.

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.

This conclusion Sir Everard has been led to draw from an examination of the foot of the Lacerta Gecko. Sir Joseph Banks had mentioned to him in the year 1815, that this lizard, which is a native of the island of Java, comes out in the evening from the roofs of the houses, and walks down the smooth hard-polished chunam walls in search of the flies which settle upon them, and which are its natural food. When Sir Joseph was at Batavia, he amused himself in catching this lizard. He stood close to the wall at some distance from the animal, and by suddenly scraping the wall with a long flattened pole, he was able to bring the animal to the ground.

Having procured from Sir Joseph a very large specimen of the Gecko, which weighed 5¾ ounces avoirdupois, Sir Everard Home was enabled to ascertain the peculiar mechanism by which the feet of this animal have the power of keeping hold of a smooth hard perpendicular wall, and carry up so heavy a weight as that of its body.

The foot of the Gecko has five toes (as shown in Fig. 62), and at the end of each of them, except the thumb, is a very sharp and highly-curved claw. On the under surface of each toe are sixteen transverse slits, leading to as many cavities or pockets, the depth of which is nearly equal to the length of the slit that forms the surface.

This structure is shown in Figs. 63 and 64, the former representing the under surface of one of the toes of the natural size, and the latter a toe dissected and highly magnified, to show the appearance of the cavities in its under surface, their fringed edge, the depth of the cavities, and the small muscles by which they are drawn open. The edge of the pockets or cavities is composed of rows of a beautiful fringe which are applied to the surface on which the animal walks against gravity, while the pockets themselves are pulled up by the muscles attached to them, so as to form the cavities into suckers.

This structure Sir Everard Home found to bear a considerable resemblance to that portion of the head of the Echineis Remora, or sucking-fish, by which it attaches itself to the shark, or the bottoms of ships. This apparatus is shown in Fig. 65: it is an oval form, and is surrounded by a broad loose moveable edge, capable of applying itself closely to the surface on which it is set. It consists of two rows of cartilaginous plates connected by one edge to the surface on which they are placed, the other, on the external edge, being serrated like that in the cavities of the feet of the Gecko. The two rows are separated by a thin ligamentous partition, and the plates, being raised or depressed by the voluntary muscles, form so many vacua, by means of which the adhesion of the fish is effected.

These beautiful contrivances of Divine Wisdom cannot fail to arrest the attention and excite the admiration of the reader; but though there can be little doubt that they are pneumatic suckers wrought by the voluntary muscles of the animals to which they belong, yet we would recommend the further examination of them to the attention of those who have good microscopes at their command.

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