EXAMINATION OF HORSES 



this focus or centre of weight ; indeed it helps to form 

 part of it, and but for the obHque direction of the 

 phalanx would certainly have transmitted through it a 

 portion of the rays in their most intense form. This 

 obliquity of the phalanx saves it in every position save 

 one, and that is when the foot is planted on the ground 

 far under the body as in sleep. In some paces, such as 

 the walk and trot, the foot occupies at every pace almost, 

 but not quite, the same relation to the body. It is in 

 sleep only that the body is thrown over the fore feet to 

 such an extent that the posterior rays of weight pass 

 through the navicular bone. If you take a perfectly 

 fresh section of the fore leg and foot from the knee, 

 plant the foot surface on the ground, and place your 

 whole weight on the knee of the section and bend it 

 forward, you tighten up the navicular bone by the per- 

 forans tendon as though it were held in a vice ; then 

 notice the direction of the long axis of the phalanx, and 

 you find that it still does not pass through the navicular 

 joint; but you are not to suppose that with thCj-weight of 

 your body the direction of the axis is directed backward 

 to the same extent as it is with the weight of the horse's 

 body. But above all, you are not to lose sight of the 

 fact that the centre or focus of the rays of weight is the 

 ivhole of the lower articular surface of the coronary bone. 

 When therefore the line of the axis of weight passes 

 i7timediately in front of but not through the navicular joi?it, 

 this joint is in the very blaze of the focus of weight, 

 besides acting as the mainstay of the coffin joint. The 



