224 HORSE-SHOEING. 



Our experience with blacksmiths during our travels has been 

 that most of them oppose any new ideas that may be advanced 

 concerning the paring and preparing of the horse's foot for the 

 application of the shoe, especially if not in accordance with the 

 manner in which they have been taught ; they also oppose the 

 use of any shoe that is foreign to their ideas, and we expect many 

 good blacksmiths and numerous horsemen will oppose some of the 

 ideas advanced in this book. The reader will bear in mind, that 

 at one time it was the belief, both among the scientific and the 

 uninformed, that the earth was flat, and that the sun rose in the 

 morning, passing over the earth during the day and under it at 

 night, making its appearance again next morning in the East, 

 thus causing us to have night and day. This was unquestionably 

 Joshua's idea when he commanded the sun to stand still. 



When Galileo advanced the idea, in the year 1633, that the 

 earth was round, and that it revolved on its own axis every 

 twenty-foiu- hours, and thus gave us the night and the day, and 

 not the sun passing over the earth, he was obliged to read his re- 

 cantation in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, and then 

 received his sentence. He was condemned, as e( vehemently sus- 

 pected of heresy," to incarceration at the pleasure of the tribunal, 

 and by way of penance, was enjoined to recite once a week the 

 seven Penitential Psalms. Finally, he was given some freedom, 

 but eventually died after spending the last eight years of his life 

 in the strict retirement which was the prescribed condition of his 

 comparative freedom. 



But in these enlightened days every one, both the scientific and 

 the unscientific, believe as did Galileo, that the earth is round 

 and revolves on its own axis, and is not stationary while the sun 

 passes over it. Nevertheless, people still continue to condemn 

 all new theories and methods they do not understand, consequently 



