659 



Fig. 508.— Spreading Shoe. 



Fig. 50Sa.— a Better For 



Holland has contrived an articulated shoe in three pieces, the 

 two lateral pieces being kept apart by double steel springs, which 

 press upon them from the toe on their internal border, and thus 

 effect the desired dilatation. Hatin has a simpler shoe (Fig. 509). 

 It is a light shoe, with nail-holes dis- 

 tant from the heels, and provided on 

 the internal border with a small chp, 

 upon which rests a V spring, fixed by 

 its point upon the toe of the shoe. 

 The branches of the spring lodge in 

 the hollows of the sole and of the frog, 

 and press upon the shoe, and thus pro- 

 duce a slow dilatation. Steinhoff has 

 also invented a shoe with springs. It 

 has recently been proposed to obtain 

 the dilatation by means of a strong 

 sole of cautchouc, placed between the 

 shoe and the foot, leaving the frog full ; 

 very thin where it rests upon the shoe and the foot, and becoming 

 thicker toward the inner border of the shoe, which it overlaps. 

 First it rests in the groove of the bars, and then portrudes upon 

 the flat of the shoe, and bears on the ground at the time of rest. 

 This elastic mass, compressed at the moment of contact, sHghtly 

 dilates the shoe, which is articulated, or, what is better, very nar- 

 row at the toe, and square ; the heels, also, are thus slowly and 

 gradually dilated. 



Fig 509.— Hatin's Shoe. 



