246 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



made rather flatter and broader on one side, viz., tliat 

 side which corresponds to the flatness of the head.' 



The nails were not pointed, as now-a-days ; and appear 

 to have been driven only a short distance in the hoof, and 

 the end that had passed through was bent round and lay 

 close to the side of the foot for safety. The sharp point 

 was not wrung off", as is now the custom, but passing along 

 the face of the hoof, was turned round like a carpenter's 

 nail, and probably buried slightly in the crust, to give it 

 a hold. ' The excellent preservation in which these shoes 

 are found can only be accounted for by their having been 

 for a long time defended, perhaps, by the hoofs to which 

 they were attached, and secondarily, from their being de- 

 posited among flints and chalk, the most indestructible 

 and undecomposable materials of all the earthy sub- 

 stances.' 



These relics are certainly extremely crude attempts in 

 workmanship, and betray a very primitive period — the 

 very infancy of the art, — more so, indeed, than any 

 specimens that have yet been met with. Some time after 

 they were discovered, the late Dean of Hereford obtained 

 a horse-shoe similar in form, which had been found with 

 others, and a skeleton, a short distance north-west of Sil- 

 bury Hill. This was figured in the Transactions of the 

 Salisbury Institute. 



Two specimens of similar construction, and which 

 were found at Beckhampton, are now in the Museum at 

 Cirencester, Gloucestershire. One of them (fig. 82) is 

 much more primitive-looking than the other, and is of 

 smaller size, agreeing very closely in this respect with 

 those tlescribed and figured by Bracy Clark. The rolled- 



