Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/123

Rh other authors. We will refer to these at another time; at present it is necessary to observe, that this mode of preserving horses' feet must have been in vogue long ages before it is casually alluded to by the Byzantine Emperors; and in all likelihood was even practised by the Romans in the early centuries of our era, though their writers are silent with regard to it.

For some years, the study of the ancient languages and of old monuments has assumed the dignity and position of a science, and has gradually introduced great modifications in the opinions held in regard to the primary phases of humanity; while discoveries, conveniently and reasonably discussed, have brought into view other horizons, and given a novel direction to ethnologic research. This new science, which investigates the unwritten history of our race, and illustrates, in a most unequivocal manner, that which has been written, has been styled 'Ethnological Archæology;' to it the discourse of our subject is already much indebted, as we will see presently.

The researches of archæologists and ethnologists have, in this and other countries, thrown much light on the manners and customs of the ancient inhabitants of Europe, and thus largely compensated for the absence of written documents; and the result has been to carry back the probable date of the introduction of modern shoeing to a generation much beyond that supposed by inquirers, who relied solely on the evidence of Greek and Roman authors, and the creations of the sculptor's chisel.

In the year 1655, Jean Jacques Chifflet published a description of what he supposed to be the tomb of Childeric, father of Clovis discovered at Tournay, in