74 ON AGE AND APPEARANCE. 



'' Since the age of that noble animal, the horse, after 

 a certain period of life (that is, after the marks in his 

 incisors and cuspidati are so entii-ely obliterated as to 

 give no clue for ascertaining his age,) appears to the gen- 

 erality of horse age judges to be a subject of very much 

 uncertainty, I now take the liberty of laying before the 

 public, through the medium of your paper, an infallible 

 method (subject to very few exceptions) of ascertaining it 

 in such a manner, after a horse loses his marks, or after he 

 arrives at the age of nine years or over, so that any person 

 concerned in horses, even of the meanest capacity, may not 

 be imposed upon in a horse's age, from nine years of age 

 and over, more than three years at farthest, until the an- 

 imal arrives at the age of twenty, and upivards, by just 

 feeling the submaxillary bone, or the bone of the lower 

 jaw. 



This method I discovered by making many anatomical 

 observations on the skulls of dead horses, and repeated 

 dissections. In order, therefore, to elucidate the above, I 

 must in the first place beg leave to remark that the sub- 

 maxillary bone, or the bone of the lower jaw of all young 

 horses about four or five years of age, immediately above 

 the bifurcation, is invariably thick and very round at the 

 bottom; the cavity of said bone being very small, contains 

 a good deal of marrow, and generally continues in this 

 state until the animal arrives at that period which is gen- 

 erally termed an aged horse, or until the animal acquires his 

 full size in height or thickness (or, according to sporting 

 language, is completely furnished,) with very little varia- 

 tion. But after this period, the (Tavity as aforesaid becomes 

 larger, and more marrow is contained therein. Hence the 

 submaxillary bone becomes thinner and sharper a little 

 above the bifurcation. 



