Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/199

Rh in the Jura Alps, by M. Quiquerez, who has distinguished himself by his researches into the situation and mode of working the Celtic forges, we will make a few extracts, which are perhaps as satisfactory as they are lucid. 'For a long time,' he says, 'there have been remarked various kinds of horse-shoes in the monuments belonging to several ages, without our having been able until the present time to make them serve as a guide to recognize with precision the period in which they were used. They have also been collected from the pastures, forests, and cultivated lands, at such depths that it could not be admitted they belonged to modern times. Some particular forms, and especially the diminutiveness of these shoes, indicated a smaller race of horses, or a breed with small feet, such as are yet noticed in certain kinds of well-bred animals. At any rate, the meagre quantity of metal employed seemed to point to a light race, or perhaps the scarcity of iron, or even these two causes combined. It is very remarkable that these small shoes are not limited to one portion of the Swiss Jura, but are found from the banks of the Rhine to Geneva, throughout the whole extent of the Alps, on both its slopes, as well as in its central valleys. We may then be assured that these are the shoes of the indigenous horses which have pastured over the whole of this country at various periods, during a long space of time. They ought, therefore, to afford a characteristic index of those Gaulish horses so renowned in bygone ages, but which have been