HOBSE CHESTNUT 69 HORTENSE ©f frost. Shoeing was introduced into England by William I., 1066. It was believed that the original breed of horses is extinct, and that the half- wild herds existing in many places have descended from animals once In cap- tivity. Thus when the horse was first introduced by the Spaniards in 1537 at Buenos Ayres, it is believed that there were no wild horses in America. But individuals escaping ran wild, and by 1580 their descendants had spread over the continent as far as the Straits of Magellan. Their favorite abode is on the Pampas, where they now exist in un- told numbers. In Paraguay the larva of a fly kills them. In 1764 they were intro- duced into the Falkland Islands by the French with a similar result. But there was found in La Plata a now extinct species of horse, and more Equidse have been found in the New than in the Old World. The horse may have descended from a striped ancestor, stripes still sometimes remaining, especially in duns and mouse-duns. His present colors are brown, gray, or black, sometimes with roundish pale spots. His age is ascer- tained by examining first which teeth are developed, and then to what extent they have been worn away by use. They are best tamed by kindness. Like other domestic animals the horse has run into various breeds. The most celebrated is the Arab horse. The racehorse, the hunter, and the carriage horse all vary considerably in character. HORSE CHESTNUT, a handsome genus of trees or shrubs {Msculiis) be- longing to the natural order Sapindacex, having large opposite digitate leaves and terminal panicles of showy white, yellow, or red flowers ^. Hippocastamim (the common horse chestnut) is familiar to everyone. The tree is said to have been brought from Constantinople to England in the beginning of the 16th century. Three other species are found in North America, popularly known un- der the name of buck-eye. HORSENS, a city of Denmark, in the Province of Aarhus. It has a beautiful church, a convent, a chapel, and a high school. The principal industries are ironworking, shipbuilding, and the man- ufacture of woodenware. There are also important agricultural interests. Pop. about 24,000. HORSE POWER, the measure of a steam engine's power, as originally set- tled by James Watt, being a lifting power equal to 33,000 pounds raised one foot high per minute. Thus an engine is said to be of 100 horse power (h. p.) when it has a lifting capacity equivalent to 3,300,000 pounds one foot high per minute. To ascertain the horse power of an engine multiply together the pres- sure in pounds on a square inch of the piston, the area of the piston in inches, the length of the stroke in feet, and the number of strokes per minute, divide the result by 33,000, and the quotient, less one-tenth, allowed for loss by friction, will give the horse power. Engines are frequently said to be of so many horse power nominal; the real or indicated horse power, however, often exceeds the nominal by as much as three to one. HORSERADISH, in botany, Cochlea- ria armoracia. Sir Joseph Hooker places it under a sub-genus of Cochlearia called Armoracia, which has valves with no dorsal nerve. It is found as an alien, or a denizen, in ditches, corners of fields, etc. It is acrid and stimulating. It is used in atonic dyspepsia, also as a sudori- fic in chronic rheumatism, and is a di- uretic in dropsies. HORSESHOE CRABS, a name for the crustaceous genus Limidiis, more com- monly called king crabs. The resem- blance to a horseshoe is in the buckler which covers the anterior part of the body. HORSLEY, SAMUEL, an English bishop; born in 1733. He was anpointed in 1788 Bishop of St. David's, from which he was translated to Rochester in 1793, receiving at the same time the deanery of Westminster; and finally to St. Asaph in 1802, when he resigned his deanery. Horsley was the greatest theo- logical controversialist of his day, and is famous for his controversy with Priestley on Unitarianism. He died in 1806. HORTENSE, EUGENIE DE BEAU- HARNAIS, (hor-tensO, daughter of Jo- sephine, the consort of Napoleon I., and of the Vicomte de Beauharnais, her first husband; born in Paris in 1783. She was married to Louis Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, in 1802. In 1806, Hortense became queen-consort of Hol- land, and about a year afterward was separated from her husband after giving birth to three sons: (1) Napoleon Charles, who died in infancy. (2) Na- poleon Louis, who was killed in an in- surrection at Romagna, 1832; and (3) Louis Napoleon, the last emperor of the French. In 1814 she was made the Duch- ess of Saint-Leu. After the Hundred Davs she was forced to fly from France, and in 1817 settled in the castle of Arenen- berg, Thurgau, Switzerland, where she spent a large part of her time. She died Oct. 5, 1837.
