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. [Illustration: _Fig. 60._]