3i8 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



and v^eterinary surgeon Bieler asserts they were in ordin- 

 ary use ; while others declare they were only employed 

 as temporary shoes, to be applied when the hoofs were too 

 much worn or the feet diseased. Baron Ziegesar, of Berg, 

 after reading the report of M. Namur regarding the Dal- 

 heim discoveries, wrote to the President of the Archaeolo- 

 gical Society of Luxembourg, informing him that, in his 

 opinion, the sabots, or hippo-sandals, were intended to be 

 put on the horses' feet at night during a halt, and that 

 they were never used for marching.' It is, indeed, diffi- 

 cult to understand why defences should be required when 

 the animals were at rest, and the hoofs not exposed to 

 attrition, and why they should be left off at the very time 

 they were likely to be needed. If difficult to be retained 

 on the hoofs during the day, they would not be less so 

 at night when the horses would be lying down and getting 

 up frequently, and the uncouth projections behind, before, 

 and on each side of the feet, would be certain to entangle 

 the animals wearing them, and either cause these clumsy 

 contrivances to be torn off, or expose the horses and their 

 riders to serious accidents. 



Mr Roach Smith, at first incredulous as to this appli- 

 cation of these articles, appears to have become convinced 

 of its correctness by discovering that in Holland horses 

 yet wear sandals. * At the present day in Holland it is 

 usual to bind long flat iron shoes to the horses' feet. They 

 are fastened with a strap of leather, and are somewhat in 

 the form of an ordinary horse-shoe, but much longer and 

 wider ; and, did we not know they are commonly used, 



' Pub. de la Soc. Arch, de Luxembourg, vol. xii. p. 163. 



