Peters did not have to raise his body
at all."
"I begin to comprehend," said I.
"Yes," replied Bainbridge, "the more you think of it, the more convinced
will you become that Peters made the leap as he states. Of course he
could not have sprung fifty feet, or even forty feet, on a level; for,
in a leap of only forty feet, one would have to raise himself more than
twelve feet into the air, and (except for a possible small advantage of
position in leaping) it requires the same amount of force to raise a
body ten feet on an incline, as it does to raise the same body ten feet
perpendicularly into space--an impossible feat, even to Peters at
twenty-eight or thirty years of age."
"I quite believe that he did it," I said, "and when we consider that he
claims to have measured the distance only mentally, and that he might
therefore honestly have mistaken it to the extent of a few feet, I am
willing to say that my confidence in his intended veracity is
unshaken--even if he is an old sailor."
"Yes," said Bainbridge, "and we must not overlook the fact that a man's
mental state at the time of performing a physical feat is a very
important determining factor in the result of the performance.
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