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. [Illustration: _Fig. 55._] 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. [Illustration: _Fig. 56._] [Illustration: _Fig. 57._] 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. [Illustration: _Fig. 58._] 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. [Illustration: _Fig. 59._] 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.