The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-01-25
New York WORLDLY

Sit in a chair, extend your arms and
legs in the attitude of one rowing,
take a firm purchase against the floor
with wour feet, get somebody to grasp
your hands and pull. So long as your
arms are extended straight before you
the pressure of each of your feet upon
the floor will be the same. Now
move your hands to the right SO that
your left arm is in front of your chest
and your right arm a foo or SO be-
yond your side; YOU will find that the
entire weight of the pull is transferred
to your right foot. You can lift your
left foot from the floor without losing
any of the pull.
Watch a team of horses backing a
are attached by chains from the names
of their collars to the tip of the pole.
though it may be that the attachment
Is by means of a bar horizontally
across the enc of the pole. If the
FORMER be the case, notice how much
efor the horses exert for how little
effect. Tell the teamster his horses
are wasting half their strength on try
ing to tear the pole in two lengthways
and he will laugh at you. Yet you will
be right. The pole bar rectifes to
some extent the mistake in applying
the power. 1t was devised for the
purpose of making the horses pull
back in a straight line. rather than
half backward and half sideways, as
they do without the pole bar.
The inventor Of this pole bar was
cropping clumsily after a principle Of
mechanics that is as old as the world,
but that, strangely enough, has been
ignored.
The carpenter knows that when he
wants to drive a nail he must hit it
straight on the head and that it re-
quires much more effort to drive a
screw with a bent screw driver thar
with a straight one.
1t is all a matter of applying W
correctly.
An automobile strikes an obstruc.
ton and turns turtle: a train runs off
the track without apparent cause. EN-
perts wonder why. They cannot ex-
plain these things because SO many of
them have never recognized another
simple principle of mechanics. But
the sprinter who crouches low to get
his start puts this principle into prac.
tice. although he may never have
studied the mathematics Of it. And
Tod Sloan recognized the principle
When he croached far forward on a
horses neck and won races from the
best Of British jockeys riding in the
old fashioned way.
The demonstrator-he might almost
be called the discoverer-of these old
but ignored principles of mechanics
Is hos II. Brigg. an English engineer,
who has devoted his life to their study
ana ,s now writing a book on the sub.
5ect. and whom Prof. Thomas Good
man OF Leeds university said that he
knew more about the principles Of the
mechanics OF traction than any other
living a
Mr.. Briggs attention was first drawn
to these principles when working on
a device to make teams OF horses ex-
ert their full strength upon a wagon
when backing. Attaching horses to a
pole wagon by chains. as is the usual
way, makes them back in an anele.
wasting half their strength in an out
ward pull. MI. Brigg devised a metal
attachment that enables horses to
back straight and thus bring all their
energy to bear upon the wagon. Lord
Lonsdale. n Of the greatest horse
men In England. realized fits value at
once and applied it to his " harness.
Lord Sufield did the same for the
royal stables after the Duke Of York.
now King George ", had put himself
into the traces and drawn q wagon
which he could not move In the old
fashioned harness.
While perfectinR this device Mr..
brieg saw photographs OF the Ok
ford and Cambridge boat race taken
from a bridge and looking almost
directly down upon the boats. The
position of the Cambridge Oarsmen
struck him as ebbing ~identicaliy the
same as that of backing horses vast.
ing their energy. Cambridge was bad
Iy beaten by Oxford that year and
the photograph showed that the OK
ford rowers were using much less en-
ergy on Sideways pulling than were
their rivals.
Mr.. BriKg made 4 disgram from