Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/520

 that, seen in profile, it looked like a cradle, and would appear to afford anything but a solid or easy footing. The total length of the ordinary fore-shoe was to be four times the length of the toe between the two first holes and the posterior or inner border. 'The distance of the external border from the one and other branch, this measure being taken between the two last or heel-nails, should be three and a half times this length, one-half of which will give the proper width of the heels to their very extremities. With regard to the adjusture, the toe should be curved up (en bateau) from the second nails from the heel to twice the thickness of the shoe, reckoning from the ground to the upper edge of the shoe at this part; it is necessary also that from this situation the extremities should rise up towards the heels to one-half its real thickness, and from thence the convexity should be one and a half times its thickness ' (fig. 186). This mode of shoeing was adapted to the aplomb and the movements of the limbs, Bourgelat thought; and his reasoning on this shows that at least he had carefully studied the mechanical problems of progression. There was nothing in the way of novelty, however, in the curvature of the shoe; we have shown in figures 56, 57, and 66, that ancient specimens found in Belgium and