LETTER IX 



ON THE FOOT 



EXPERIMENTAL philosophy has been hard 

 put to it in its researches into the foot of 

 the horse. Indeed Nature herself seems 

 to have exerted her very nicest art before 

 she could form anything in the shape of animate 

 substance capable of being hammered with the force 

 of a sledge-hammer, and all this with impunity, 

 for twenty years in succession. To accomplish this 

 she has had recourse to all the art and power of 

 mechanism — to springs and cushions, pulleys and 

 levers, and to every contrivance to prevent concussion 

 in the internal parts of it ; whilst the outward part 

 is composed of a substance of all others the most 

 suited to its purpose, being firm enough to bear the 

 weight of the horse and his burdens, and admirably 

 adapted to the adhesion of nails, by which shoes are 

 affixed to it for its protection. Notwithstanding, 

 however, the unrivalled excellence of the workman- 

 ship, it is too often unequal to the purposes to which 

 we apply it ; and the diseases and injuries of the feet 

 of horses form a bane for which no antidote has hither- 

 to been discovered, and which so frequently blast the 

 hopes and expectations of the sportsman, who goes 



i«4 



