Page:On the Influence of the Thickness of Air-space on Total Reflection of Electric Radiation.djvu/11

310 two divisions was obtained for the reflection reading. From this an approximate idea of the intensity of the reflected component may be obtained. Half the total radiation gave a deflection of 120 divisions. The intensity of the reflected component, with a thickness of 0·45 mm., is therefore 1/120th part of the total amount of incident radiation, on the assumption, which is only approximate, that the galvanometer deflections were symmetrical. When the thickness was reduced to 0·3 mm., no reflected component could be detected, though the receiver was made extremely sensitive.

 

It is strange that the huge sums spent on the breeding of pedigree stock, whether of horses, cattle, or other animals, should not give rise to systematic publications of authentic records in a form suitable for scientific inquiry into the laws of heredity. An almost solitary exception to the disregard, shown by breeders and owners, of exact measurements for publication in stud books, exists in the United States with respect to the measured speed of "trotters" and "pacers" under defined conditions. The performance of 1 mile by a trotter, harnessed to a two-wheeled vehicle, carrying a weight of not less than 150 lbs. inclusive of the driver, in 2 minutes 30 seconds qualifies him for entry in the Trotting Register, giving him, as it were, a pass-degree into a class of horses whose several utmost speeds or "records" are there published. To avoid prolixity I will not speak particularly of pacers (pace = amble), since what will be said of the trotters applies in general principle to them also.

The great importance attached to high speed, and the watchfulness of competitors, have resulted in evolving a method of timing trotters which is generally accepted as authoritative. The length of the track is scrupulously measured, and numerous other conditions are attended to, that shall ensure the record being correct, with an attempted exactitude to the nearest quarter of a second. A race against time, even if exact to the nearest quarter of a second, is by no means so close a measure of the speed of a horse relatively to his competitors, as the differential method of ordinary races. The speed of 1 mile in 2′ 30″, or of 1760 yards in 150 seconds, is equivalent to about 12 yards in 1 second. Now, the length of a horse when extended at full trot is half as long again as his height at the withers—as I gather from the instantaneous photographs of Muybridge—and consequently is hardly ever as much as