The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1880-02-04
PHOTOGRAPHER IN MOTION.
instantaneous Pictures of Horses While
Running and Trot:ing.
rNox York Tfmes

New York Times
Professor Manly Miles lectured before the
New YorksAcademy of Comparative Anato-
my, in East Thirty fourth street, recently,
on "The Horse in Motion" The lecture was
profuselv illustrated with views of celebrated
trotting and running horses taken instan-
taneonsly while at top speed by the new
automatic electro-photographic process. A
screen of white canvas stood ut one end of
the room, and upon this the views, magniied
to 80 diameters, were projected by stereop-
tican. a large gathering was present,
including many veterinary surgeons
and several distinguished horse-fanciers.
All of them manifested great in
terest in the exhibition, and frequently inter-
rupted the professor with loud applause.
Artists and painters, Professor Miles said,
had always been wrong about the actual
motions of the horse. They drew him as he
appeared to them, but, unfortunately that
appearance was rot correct. The impressions
made on the retina Of the eve were only a
! blending of the animals, which, by reason of
| their velocity. the retina could not distinctly
retain. The views he would exhibit were
| all taken by Ex-Governor Leland, of Califor-
mia. in the, fall of 1878. Twelve cameras,
manufactured in London for that express
purpose, were placed side by side upon the
| Palo Alto track. The distance between each
was ~ inches, and as the horse, Abe Egerton,
passed at a speed Of 2:24, he touched - sue
/ cessive wires, by which the photographs
were transferred, one after another, to as
many different plates thus giving in detail
| - different positions occupied by the animal
in a. single stride of % feet The time occu-
pied in transferring each photograph to the
plate by the electric attachment was esti-
mated at 1000 part ola second. The result
| had been to clear up many errors in regard
To the true position of the horse, especially the
error of Stonehenge, the English authority,
who held, that IN trotting, the hind legs
moved more rapidly than the fore legs, and
that the chief function the latter had to per-
form was to support the animal. Governor
Leiand's experiments had demonstrated con-
| clusively that the fore legs moved rs fast as
| the hind legs. Another notion which has
been proved fallaciOus was that soft fet-
| locks or pasterus were fatal to speed. Tho n
Simultaneous photographs showed that, 30
far from this being TRUE, the
swiftest horses possessed the most
| flexible and elastic pasterns, and that all
horses IN planting their feet on the ground,
bent the pastern to a degree hitherto not
dreamed of. NJ Marie, French investiga-
tor and author of eminence had satisfied him.
| II
ments, that the horse, with all four legs off
the ground, was actually lower down than
when he struck the roadway again. This
also had been disproved by the photographs.
At this point the gas was turned off and
the magnited views were thrown upon the
canvass. The first series was of Egerton,
graceful trotter, doing his mile in 2:24. On
the screen the limbs looked greatly elongat-
ed, and were twisted under and about the
animal in all sorts of apparently impossible
attitudes No one would have taken him
for handsome horse. In the third scene
he was pictured ain the air" i. e., with all
four feet off the ground. The feet were fly
| ing in all directions and the effect was most
ludcrous. Several of the views illustrated
the marked fexibility Of the pasterns spoken
! of by the professor. On striking the ground,
the pasterns of the off fore and hind
/ feet were represented almost on a
| level with the surface, and the beau
tiful elasticity and powerful leverage
with which they were afterward raised up
ward. forcing the body ahead was greatly
| admired. In all cases the foot was repre-
sented as striking the ground with back
ward motion, the heel or ball of the foot be-
! ing the first to strike. Photographs of Occi-
dent going at a2:2l gait, differed very lit
tie from those of EgertOn. The most re-
markabie views were series of y, repre-
senting the pretty and docile racing mare,
Sally Gardner, making mile in 40 and a
| fraction. They were taken at intervals of
| little over two feet, showing each distinct po-
sition assumed during a single stride. AT
times, she was standing on the tip of one
hoof and brandishing the other three feet
wildly in the air, at others was thrusting all
four in different directions like the spokes of
tireless wheel. In fact the professor said
that the movements of racers limbs were
on much the same principle as those of
wheel spokes. When Sally left the ground
and rose in the air, the audience laughed
long and loud. The mare looked exactly
like a crazy mule with four legs tangled in
extricably beneath her. The lecturer ex.
planned that when the photographs were put
in the instrument known the ''zoatrope,"
and blended together, the horses assumed Il
more graceful outline-one more in cOnson-
ance with those of the painters and artists.