Page:Horses and roads.djvu/60

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44
HORSES AND ROADS

and vans are to be continually met with in the City.

M. La Fosse was deeply impressed with the idea that less iron was required; and he boldly cut off one-half of the shoe—that is to say he maintained that a tip on the front half of the foot was all that was necessary. But, unfortunately, he spoilt a very bright idea in two ways—he recommended the heels of weak-footed horses to be pared (and this, of course, made them weaker), while he fastened on a tip, of about six inches in its entire length of iron, with eight nails. Horse-nails run from about one-eighth up to three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness. So he was inserting wedges amounting, in the aggregate, from one to one and a half inches in thickness, in six inches of horn, thus squeezing it into the space of five, or even four inches, and killing it from the clenches downwards and outwards.

Mr. Douglas says: ‘If the crust is closely examined with a microscope, its structure will be found to consist of a number of bristle-like fibres standing on end, but bearing diagonally towards the ground. From the particular longitudinal construction of the fibres, it follows that they will bear a great amount of weight so long as they are kept in their natural state. The crust so viewed resembles a number of small tubes, bound together by a hardened, glue-like substance. Whoever has seen a mitrailleuse gun, with its numerous barrels all soldered together, can form a very good idea of the