SADDLE. A seat formed upon a horse's back, for the convenience of the rider. Saddles are as various as the nations that use them ; and even in the same country as in this they are made in a variety of forms and fashions, which are too familiar to our readers to need description. The improvements of late years have contributed much to the ease of both the horse and the rider. Among the recent patents having this object in view, we shall mention the leading features of two or three of them.
To give increased elasticity to the seats of saddles, Mr. Marsh employs fine wire springs, in lieu of the wool and other materials generally used in stuffing them, which are apt, by the compression of the rider, to become hard. The springs are of the kind used in garters and elastic braces. They are estended in rows from the front to the back of the saddle, upon the ordinary packing, and secured by sewing their ends to a web which is attached to the saddle. When this is done, the usual coating of cloth is put over the wire springs, and fastened down upon the covering of the packing below by stitching in lines at small distances apart, crosswise of the saddle, by which means the rows of wire will be kept alongside of each other, and prevented from overlapping. The external covering forming the seat being now placed over the springs, and finished in the usual way, an elastic seat is produced, which, it is said, is much superior to any kind of packing before used.
Mr. Henry Calvert, of Lincoln, had a patent in 1830, the object of which was to avoid the inconvenience and danger occasioned by saddles slipping **ward. The subjoined cut represents one of Mr. Calvert's, with the exterior cover and flap removed to show the construction. The im provement mainly consists in attaching to the fore part of the; paddle-tree an elastic plate of i metal extending in a sloping direction towards the front of the saddle ; It is confined by two loops, which receive the girth strap; the proper shape of the sweat-flap is also shown. The small buckle which is fixed to the loose end of the girth is drawn up to the small strap after the horse is igirthed. The front girth of course is strapped first, and the second not quite so tight.
By this arrangement it will be seen that the saddle is kept in its place, by the elasticity of the metal plate, and that it cannot move forward upon the horse without the girth being lengthened. •
Messrs. Laurence and Rudder had a patent in the succeedingyear for improvement in saddles and girths by an apparatus fixed to either of them;" the object of which was to give to saddle girths an elasticity to press sufficient tension under the varying dimensions of the animals to which they may be applied. Saddle-girths, for instance, that have been put on immediately after the horse has been fed, must either be made inconveniently tight at first, or else they will become inconveniently loose as the size of the animal diminishes by the digestion of his food. The patentees denominate their girths the constrictor girths, (probably from their grasping the animal like a boa constrictor,) and they are made by attaching to the saddle-tree by a pair of hinges, a small shallow brass case containing a series of grasshopper springs, and behind the springs is a movable plate, to which the girth-straps are attached in such manner that when the movable plate is pulled down by the girth-straps the springs are collapsed, or brought into a position to exert their elasticity In preserving the lightness of the girth.
Several other inventors have patented their contrivances for similar objects to the -foregoing, the details of which would be generally uninteresting ; those persons, therefore, who wish to extend their investigations of these matters we must refer to the Repertory of dirk, the London Journal of Arta, and the Inrolment Offices in Chancery.
There is another species of saddle, worn by horses in harness ; one of which.
as improved by Mr. J. Lukens, of Philadelphia, we lately saw in the shop of Mr. Cuff, of Pali-Mall East. It is represented in the preceding cut; and is sometimes called a harness pad. They are adapted to fit the back of any horse. a is the pad or saddle, the two sides of which are connected by a flexible strap, and also by a curved inflexible bar, which is attached to the terreta b b, by joints at a c. In the middle of the curved bar is fixed what is termed the bolt hook. The joints at c c, it will be perceived, allow of the pads being moved nearer to, or farther from the centre of the horse's back ; on which they sit very lightly and pleasantly.