The exterior of the horse . olumns ar-ticulated from distance to distance and desig-nated by the name of members. The polygonformed by the lines joining the four pointswhich touch the ground at rest representswhat is called the base of support. Thispolygon is sometimes a triangle ; at othertimes the base of support is reduced to aline ; finally it may be only a jjoint. What-ever may be the form and extent of the baseof support, it is necessary, in order to obtainequilibrium, that the line of gravitation doesnot meet the ground outside of this base. //The equilibrium will be so much moresfabk a
The exterior of the horse . olumns ar-ticulated from distance to distance and desig-nated by the name of members. The polygonformed by the lines joining the four pointswhich touch the ground at rest representswhat is called the base of support. Thispolygon is sometimes a triangle ; at othertimes the base of support is reduced to aline ; finally it may be only a jjoint. What-ever may be the form and extent of the baseof support, it is necessary, in order to obtainequilibrium, that the line of gravitation doesnot meet the ground outside of this base. //The equilibrium will be so much moresfabk as the base of support becomes larger/the centre of gravity placed lower, and theline of gravitation nearer the centre of thebase. It will be unstable in the contrary con-FiG. 3. ditions. In fact, in the solid here represented (Fig. 3) it will be seen that if the centre ofgravity is displaced from A to C, having reached to the point C, the slightestoscillation of one side or the other, CC^ for example, will cause the line of. THE LEVER AND MUSCULAR MECHANISM. \\ \ gravitation to come outside of the base and provoke a fall. Therefore, a horseV,iavinj>: a heavy body mounted upon long, slender members drawn close to the