fJORSE-SHOES IN THE JURJ ALPS. 



1 / r 



in tlie Jura Alps, by M. Quiquerez,' who has distinguished 

 himself by his researches into the situation and mode of 

 working the Celtic forges, we will make a few extracts, 

 which are perhaps as satisfactory as they are lucid. 

 ' For a long time,' he says, ' there have been remarked 

 various kinds of horse-shoes in the monuments belonging 

 to several ages, without our having been able until the 

 present time to make them serve as a guide to recognize 

 with precision the period in which they were used. They 

 have also been collected from the pastures, forests, and 

 cultivated lands, at such depths that it could not be 

 admitted they belonged to modern times. Some par- 

 ticular forms, and especially the diminutiveness of these 

 shoes, indicated a smaller race of horses, or a breed with 

 small feet, such as are yet noticed in certain kinds of 

 well-bred animals. At any rate, the meagre quantity 

 of metal employed seemed to point to a light race, 

 or perhaps the scarcity of iron, or even these two causes 

 combined. It is very remarkable that these small shoes 

 are not limited to one portion of the Swiss Jura, but are 

 found from the banks of the Rhine to Geneva, through- 

 out the whole extent of the Alps, on both its slopes, as 

 well as in its central valleys. We may then be assured 

 that these are the shoes of the indigenous horses which 

 have pastured over the whole of this country at various 

 periods, during a long space of time. They ought, 

 therefore, to aftbrd a characteristic index of those Gaulish 

 horses so renowned in bygone ages, but which have been 



' Les Anciens Fers de Chevaux dans le Jura. Mem. de la Soc. 

 d'Emulalion du Doubs, 1864, p. 129. 



