The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries by Francis Galton
page 46 of 465 (09%)
page 46 of 465 (09%)
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distance of 1000 geographical miles, across a rude country, in six
months. These data have, of course, no reference to a journey which may be accomplished by a single great effort, nor to one where the watering-places and pasturages are well known; but apply to an exploration of considerable length, in which a traveller must feel his way, and where he must use great caution not to exhaust his cattle, lest some unexpected call for exertion should arise, which they might prove unequal to meet. Persons who have never travelled--and very many of those who have, from neglecting to analyse their own performances--entertain very erroneous views on these matters. Rate of Movement to measure.--a. When the length of pace etc., is known before beginning, to observe.--A man or a horse walking at the rate of one mile per hour, takes 10 paces in some ascertainable number of seconds, dependent upon the length of his step. If the length of his step be 30 inches, he will occupy 17 seconds in making 10 paces. Conversely, if the same person counts his paces for 17 seconds, and finds that he has taken 10 in that time, he will know that he is walking at the rate of exactly 1 mile per hour. If he had taken 40 paces in the same period, he would know that his rate had been 4 miles per hour; if 35 paces, that it had been 3.5, or 3 1/2 miles per hour. Thus it will be easily intelligible, that if a man knows the number of seconds appropriate to the length of his pace, he can learn the rate at which he is walking, by counting his paces during that number of seconds and by dividing the number of his paces so obtained, by 10. In short the number of his paces during the period in question, gives his rate per hour, in miles and decimals of a mile, to one place of decimals. I am indebted to Mr. Archibald Smith for this very ingenious notion, which I have worked into the following Tables. In Table I., I give the appropriate number of seconds corresponding to paces of various lengths. I find, however, that |
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