HISTORY OF HORSE-SHOEING. 5 



As for the instruments used to shorten over-long feet, we 

 know, from the accounts given by Hippocrates, Absyrtus, and 

 Vegetius, and by the remains found in Gastra Peregrina, 

 Pompeii, and Masium, that tliey were ahnost precisely similar 

 to the ' toeing-knife ' of the present day. 



In general, the liorse-shoes of both these classical peoples 

 were neither practical nor perfect. 



The Celts, however, are credited, especially by French investi- 

 gators, with having employed nailed-on shoes before the opening 

 of the Christian era, and having extended their use throughout 

 Gaul, Germany, and England. Though described by the 

 Komans as barbaric, these people excelled in such occupations 

 as agriculture, mining, shipbuilding and sailing, commerce and 

 art. The Gauls and other Northern races of this period hoped 

 to resume their work after death, and therefore buried weapons 

 and other property, and even favourite horses, along with their 

 dead. From such remains archaeologists have been able to 

 determine the habits and customs, and even the industries of 

 these ancient races. Amongst articles discovered have been 

 horse-shoes. 



The French palaeontologist Capstan, during excavations on 

 the site of the ancient town of Alesia (in the Department of 

 the Cote d'Or), found, in addition to wheel tyres and horses' 

 bones, fragments of bronze horse-shoes, worn through at the 

 toe, and a collection of nails, the heads of which resemble 

 violin pegs. The same observer, in examining a Celtic barrow, 

 found buried in a quantity of ashes the bones of men, horses, 

 pigs, and bears, and beneath them a triangular file, a portion of 

 a flat hie, a chisel, masses of iron dross, a piece of bronze 

 casting, an iron buckle, an iron hammer about five pounds in 

 weight, an iron ring, and part of a small horse-shoe, with a 

 nail attached. The remains were mixed with broken fragjments 

 of rude Celtic pottery. 



Between the French towns of Langres and Dijon, where 

 most probably the last battles which preceded the siege of 

 Alesia (b.c. 52), and delivered Gallia into the hands of 

 Caesar, were fought, relatively large numbers of small fullered 

 shoes have been found at a depth of 2 to 3 feet. Some 

 carried nails resembling in form a Eoman T, which were 

 provided with clenches, showing how the shoes were fastened 



