PREFJLEACE OF SHOES JFITH CELTIC REMAINS. 179 



debris of shoes on the continuation of this road near the 

 mill of the Roches de Courrendelin, and also near Grel- 

 lingen, always beside deep ruts, and sometimes beside 

 transverse grooves and cuttings in the rock, in the bed 

 of these passages, intended to prevent the horses slipping. 

 These same shoes are also found at the bottom of the 

 tourhieres of the Swiss plain, in the Gaulish monuments 

 of Alesia, in the plains of Champagne, on the battle-field 

 where Attila is said to have been defeated in 45 i .' The 

 Cossacks, the descendants of the ancient Scythians, or 

 Huns, yet shoe their horses in the same fashion. We 

 might cite many other discoveries of these same shoes, as 

 well in Switzerland as elsewhere, and particularly in the 

 districts of the Jura. We think that these are assuredly 

 the shoes of the indigenous horses which wandered or 

 pastured on the mountains of our country, long before 

 the arrival of the Romans; and they have remained in 

 use with the Jurassic people during the Roman domin- 

 ation, and still later, concurrently with those we are about 

 to describe. It may have happened that the shoeing of 

 the Gallic horses was derived from the relations of the 

 Gauls with Asia, where nail-shoeing is said to have been 

 of high antiquity ; and if we, as well as our neighbours, 

 regard these small shoes as of Hunnic, Saracenic, or even 

 of Swedish origin, it is simply because people confound 

 the epochs of the invasions which have desolated the 

 country. Even now, these articles are attributed to the 

 Cossacks in 18 14. 



' In the numerous Roman camps whose remains occupy 



' Camu-Chardon. Notice sur la Defaite d'Attila, Mem. de ]a Soc. 

 Acad, de I'Aube, 18^4. 



