392 



HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



these shoes are to be found in the seals of Walter Mar- 

 shall, and Ralph of Durham, already figured. Some 

 years ago, at the formation of the London, Chatham, and 

 Dover railway, in a cutting near Meopham, Kent, a shoe 

 of this description (fig. 145) was disinterred. It is very 



heavy, large, and shaped as if 

 for the foot of a mule. The 

 nail-head yet remaining has 

 been somewhat worn, yet 

 enough is left to exhibit its 

 peculiar square shape. The 

 shoe appears to have been 

 pulled oflT, as it is much twist- 

 ed. The toe looks as if it had 

 been slightly bent or ' curved' 

 up, like the present French 

 fig. 145 shoe, and there are four nails 



on each side. The calkins are solid, thick, and high, and 

 altogether it is a clumsy shoe ; measuring, as it does, 4J 

 inches across the quarters, 5| inches long, and i^ inch 

 wide in cover; and though much oxidized, weighing 18J 



ounces ! 



Another specimen is here shown 

 from the excavations at Besanqon, 

 and which is supposed by M, Meg- 

 nin to belong to the middle ages ' 

 (fig. 146). And a curious example 

 of the shod horse, in which the nail- 

 heads and calkins are very con- 

 becoming glcnccd, clciiccd, and clenched. The word has been in use 

 from a very remote period in the history of this craft in Britain. 

 ' Hist. Ferrure, p. 26. 



