Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/351

 appear to have been subjected to wear in other respects, show any marks of hoof wear; that is, still granting that they could be fastened to the extremity of the limb. It is well known that a horse's shoes, after being a short time subjected to use on hard ground, become rounded over at the toe, where the greatest amount of wear occurs; also that the foot-surface, even with the shoe firmly nailed to the wall, becomes worn and channeled where any play or friction takes place. This is well seen in an old horseshoe. No such evidences appear on the best-preserved of these so-called sandals. On the contrary, the upper surface of the sole is entirely free from traces of friction of any kind, and the under or ground-surface is usually most worn towards the middle, the extremities being sharp rather than rounded over. There is not the faintest trace of their having been worn at all by horses. No nation ever offered any contrivance so unsuited to the object to be attained as these so-called hippo-sandals, if we suppose them to have been intended for horses' feet. There is nothing at all reasonable in the supposition; and in this opinion I find I am supported by MM. Delacroix and Quiquerez, antiquarians who have had abundant opportunities of studying this matter, and have availed themselves of them. M. Quiquerez writes: 'The many excavations made by us in the Roman villas, camps, and castles of the Bernese Jura have never afforded us any of these calceæ ferreæ, or hippo-sandals, with which people would like to shoe the feet of Roman horses. But we have seen plenty of these articles, without being able to comprehend how a horse, starting at a gallop on an uneven road, could, for an instant even, carry