CHARACTER OF PRIMITIVE SHOES. 175 



smelting is still in use among some peoples unacquainted 

 with the improvements of civilized nations. The ancient 

 Peruvians, for example, built their furnaces in this manner. 

 Mungo Park also noticed a similar practice in Africa, 

 and it has also been described as existing in the Hima- 

 laya mountains of Central Asia. 



'The shoesof the first period are small, narrow, and scant 

 of metal, constantly pierced with six holes, whose external 

 opening is strongly stamped in a longitudinal form, to 

 lodge the base of the nail-head. The slight thickness, and 

 especially the narrowness of the metal, causes it at each 

 hole to bulge, and to give a festooned appearance to the 

 external border of the shoe. The thickness of the latter 

 is from one-eighth to one-seventh of an inch, and the 

 width from six to seven-tenths of an inch between each 

 hole, thus indicating the dimensions of the bar of metal 

 before stamping. The form of the stamped holes in- 

 dicates the employment of a steel punch, and consequently 

 a knowledge of the manufacture of steel at the period 

 when these horse-shoes were made. 



' One of these shoes (fig. 29) has been found, with a 

 portion of the bones of a horse, in a peat-moss near 

 the old abbey of Bellelay, at a depth of twelve feet, 

 resting on the primitive soil. There was, therefore, every 

 reason to believe that this horse had not been buried in 

 the peat, but that, on the contrary, it had perished in this 

 place before the formation of the heap, inasmuch as its 

 scattered bones testified to the work of carnivorous ani- 

 mals gathered around their prey. Many of these shoes 

 have been found at various depths in the turf-beds of the 

 Helvetic plain, but we have not been able to obtain pre- 



