Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/206

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178
HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING.

Jurassian Society of Emulation is about to publish what we have written on the new discoveries made in this portion of our mountains (figs. 33, 34).

'Other shoes, always like the former, are frequently met with in pastures, forests, and cultivated lands, but constantly at somewhat considerable depths. They often also mark the ancient narrow road-ways, which have ruts worn into the rock, and where the short axle-tree has scraped away the stone at the sides in its passage, at a height of from 12 to 13 inches (Celtic roads). We have rarely found this description of shoes in the Roman camps; in fact, only on that of Mount Terrible, which was formed on an oppidum; we believe, however, that the shoes from this place belonged to the same category as the Celtic objects of the three ages, and which have been found in such large numbers. Nevertheless, it is very remarkable that one of these shoes has been gathered in the ruins of the castle of Asuel, supposed to have been built in the 11th century and destroyed in the 15th (fig. 33). But it might well belong to an earlier period, as we have found a similar specimen in the walls of the château of Sogron, where a horse certainly never planted foot (fig. 35). This building dated from the 8th century, and was burned in 1499; in its vicinity we have found a stone hatchet and two Celtic coins of Togirix.

'We might also mention the discovery of one of these shoes with undulated borders at a great depth near the glass-works of Moutier, on the track of a Celtic road at the entrance to the passes of Court, and also farther away at the level of the river Byrse (fig. 52). We have seen