338 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



' If, then,' says M. Megnin/ ' we place the invention 

 of horse-shoeing about the fifth or sixth century before 

 our era — that is, at the period when Druidism was most 

 flourishing — we only follow the indications furnished by 

 the Celtic roads, and we remain within very probable 

 limits. The Druids, taught the structure of the horse's 

 foot by the numerous sacrifices they made of this animal, 

 accustomed to the manipulation of metals, and their in- 

 telligence continually cultivated by study, were marvel- 

 lously disposed to be the inventors of shoeing by nails. 

 When we also look at the rational form they gave to 

 their work — how wisely they placed the nail-holes, and 

 how skilfully they made the nail-heads to form so many 

 catches to assist travelling in rocky and mountainous 

 regions — one cannot but be astonished at the perfection 

 which the sacred smiths had attained in defending and 

 assisting nature two thousand years ago.' 



' The Druids,' writes Galtruch,^ ' encouraged the study 

 of anatomy; but they carried it on to such an excess, and 

 so much beyond all reason and humanity, that one of 

 them, called Herophilus, is said to have read lectures on 

 the bodies of more than 700 living men, to show therein 

 the secrets and wonders of the human fabric' 



The discoveries in the tombs of Alesia and in the 

 vicinity of Besanqon, furnish us with such undoubted 

 testimony to the antiquity of shoeing, that a high authority 

 in France, who had assisted in these researches, declared, 

 'after these evidences I have no fear in asserting that 

 from the time of the conquest of Gaul by the Romans, 



' Op. cit. p. 31. ' Poetical History. 



