of military duty, with
its work across tilled fields and through forests, can imagine a man on
a wheel rendering any very effective service except under peculiar
conditions. Moreover, no ordnance corps can do its appointed work in the
rear of a line of battle without sending its wagons across country and
over ground which no unhorsed vehicle could traverse.

The mark of the old utility of the animal in varied employment is
retained in our use of the term horse-power in measuring the energy of
engines. That gauge of strength of old determined what man could do in
the severest taxes upon the forces at his command. In attaining the
point where, owing to the possession of horses, he could use this
standard, he won a great way beyond the station of his ancestors, who
had but the strength of men at their command. Modern invention, by
giving us heat-engines, has made the way for an advance. In another
century, or even in another generation, the horse may, save for the uses
of war, be confined to the position of a luxury and an ornament.

THE FLOCKS AND HERDS: BEASTS FOR
BURDEN, FOOD, AND RAIMENT

Effect of this Group of Animals on Man.--First Subjugations.--Basis
of Domesticability.--Horned Cattle.--Wool-bearing Animals.--Sheep
and Goats.--Camels: their Limitation.--Elephants: Ancient History;
Distribution; Intelligence; Use in the Arts; Need of True
Domestication.--Pigs: their Peculiar Economic Value; Modern
Varieties; Mental Qualities.--Relation of the Development of
Domesticable Animals to the Time of Man's Appearance on the Earth.

It is not too much to say that the opportunity to go forward on the
paths of culture, at least the chance to advance any considerable
distance beyond the estate of primitive men, depends in a considerable
measure upon what the wilderness may offer in the way of domesticable
beasts of burden. Where such exist we find that the folk who dwell with
them in any land are almost certain to have made great advances. Where
the surrounding nature, however rich, denies this boon, we find that
men, however great their natural abilities may appear to be, exhibit a
retarded development. Thus in North America, where there was no
domesticable beast of burden, the Indians, though an able folk, remain
savages. So, too, in central and southern Africa, where the mammalian
life, though rich, affords no large forms which tolerate captivity, the
people have failed to attain any conside