Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/196

 measurement appears to have been—length, 4½ inches; width, 4⅓ inches. The strongest branch, which may be looked upon as that for the outer border of the hoof, had the holes punched coarsely (that is, farther from the external border); and the inner or weaker branch, finer, or nearer the outer edge. The holes were a little more rectangular than is usually seen in these primitive specimens. M. Troyon was in doubt as to the epoch to which this mound, and the bones, spurs, bits, and other articles, belonged; but elsewhere he appears to refer the shoes to the second 'iron age,' or the Helveto-Roman period (see fig. 22). In speaking of these articles, this able antiquarian remarks: 'A horse-shoe has been discovered, with arrow-heads and lances, in a tumulus in the neighbourhood of Aussée, which appears to me to resemble that of Chavannes. Another has been found in a tumulus in the Canton Berne, but its form is exactly that of those met with in the Roman ruins. We see horse-shoes like those of Chavannes, but of more advanced workmanship, from the battle-field of Cressy, and preserved in the Artillery Museum of Paris.' Baron Bonstetten gives a drawing of a fragment of a shoe of this description, obtained by workmen who were demolishing a tumulus standing between Sariswyl and Murzelen, Canton Berne. It is merely the toe-piece of the shoe, without holes or any other indication of its antiquity. In three other tumuli explored by this archæologist, arms and several objects in bronze were recovered,