Moderate walking exercises the most agreeable influence over all the functions. In relation to health, walking accelerates respiration and circulation, increases the temperature and cutaneous exhalation, and excites appetite and healthful nutrition. Hence, as an anonymous writer observes, the true pedestrian, after a walk of twenty miles, comes in to breakfast with freshness on his countenance, healthy blood coursing in every vein, and vigour in every limb, while the indolent and inactive man, having painfully crept over a mile or two, returns to a dinner which he cannot digest. In all individuals, walking is indispensably joined with the exercise of one or more of the external senses. It receives from the cerebral faculties a powerful influence, by which it is either accelerated or prolonged. Walking upon soft even ground, at a moderate pace, is an exercise that may be taken without inconvenience, and even with advantage, after a meal. It is adapted for convalescents, who are not yet allowed to take stronger exercise. A firm, yet easy and graceful walk, is by no means common. There are few men who walk well if they have not learnt to regulate their motions by the lessons of a master, and this instruction is still more necessary for ladies. Having, now, therefore, taken a general view of the character and utility of walking, I subjoin some more particular remarks on the GENERAL MECHANISM OF WALKING. For the purpose of walking, we first bear upon one leg the weight of the body, which pressed equally on both. The other leg is then raised, and the foot quits the ground by rising from the heel to the point. For that purpose, the leg must be bent upon the thigh, and the thigh upon the pelvis: the foot is then carried straight forward, at a sufficient height to clear the ground without grazing it. To render it possible, however, to move this foot, the haunch, which rested with its weight upon the thigh, must turn forward and out. As soon as, by this movement, this foot has passed the other, it must be extended on the leg, and the leg upon the thigh, and in this manner, by the lengthening of the whole member, and without being drawn back, it reaches the ground at a distance in advance of the other foot, which is more considerable according to the length of the step, and it is placed so softly on the ground as not to jerk or shake the body in the slightest degree. As soon as the foot which has been placed on the ground becomes firm, the weight of the body is transported to the limb on that side, and the other foot, by a similar mechanism, is brought forward in its turn. In all walking, the most important circumstance is, that the body incline forward, and that the movement of the leg and thigh spring from the haunch, and be free and natural. Viewed in this way, the feet have been well compared to the spokes of a wheel: the weight of the body falling upon them alternately.