Fig. 1, Plate XVI. represents one method. It consists in loading the shoulders with sacks full of articles whose weight is previously known. The position of the arms and hands is such that the pupil can support a great weight: but in this way he can walk but very slowly; and it is therefore, so far, disadvantageous. [Illustration: _Plate XVI_ _Page 60._ Carrying Weight.] Fig. 2, in the same plate, supports a weight by means of a hod. This is filled with balls or stones, of which the weight is known. The form of the weight is of consequence. A soldier now carries with ease a knapsack full of articles, and additional weight above it, because the flat shape that has been lately adopted fits the body, and lies close to the back, as in fig. 3, and the centre of gravity is thus very little deranged. But if the knapsack were of the old shape, very projecting and very round, as in fig. 4, the soldier would be forced to incline his body forward, and would not be able to carry as great a weight, nor march as long a time, in consequence of fatigue. It is for this reason, among others, desirable to extend the knowledge of the most simple rules of mechanics, because these rules are serviceable in avoiding many dangers, and diminishing the fatigue and the efforts that vacillation in the movements produces. We may make use of a hook to bear boxes or bags in addition, with the weights marked, and thus learn the carrier’s strength. Milo, says history, first carried a calf immediately after its birth, and continued to do so every day till it had reached its full size. It was said by this means that he was able to carry even the ox itself, and afterwards throw it on the ground and kill it with his fist. Augustus the Second, King of Poland, carried a man upon his hand. A man named Roussel, a labourer in the environs of Lisle, who on a smaller scale (being but four feet ten inches in height), was formed exactly like the Farnese Hercules, raised on his shoulders a weight of eighteen hundred pounds. He cleared a circle six feet in height with very little spring and one hundred-weight in each hand. When seated on the ground, he rose up without aid, carrying two men on his arms. Equally astonishing in the strength of his loins, he took up two hundred-weight leaning backwards over a chair. “I have seen this remarkable man,” says Friedlander: “the whole of his family are very strong: his sister and brother are equally remarkable in this point.” It is very striking to find in him the characteristic traits with which antiquity depicted the ideal of bodily strength. In the Encyclopædia of Krumtz, vol. lxxii., we find instances of some men similar to Roussel, who lived at the commencement of the last century. A man named Eckenberg raised a cannon of two thousand five hundred pounds weight; and two strong men were unable to take from him a stick that he held between his teeth.