578 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



* Full of hope that the sole and the other parts would 

 offer sufficient resistance to the hardness of our pavements 

 and stony roads, I tried, and little by little, after many 

 attempts, I at last imagined the shoe I now have the 

 honour to lay before you. 



' This shoe, thicker than it is wide, is very light com- 

 pared with the ordinary shoe, weighing more than a third 

 less ; it is forged without trouble even by one man, and is 

 turned, fitted, and attached as easily as the other. I am 

 inclined to believe, then, that I have reached the end I 

 proposed to myself, and which was to make horses travel 

 unshod, or, since that was not possible with our paved and 

 macadamized roads, at least with a simple rim of iron 

 which allows all parts of the plantar surface, especially the 

 frog and buttresses, to participate in sustaining the weight 

 and adhering solidly to the ground. 



' It is a long time since the great practitioner Lafosse 

 had recognized the necessity of allowing the frog to play 

 its part ; we have not forgotten the famous lunette shoe 

 which has been so much lauded, and the only incon- 

 veniences of which were that it allowed the horn of the 

 heels to be split and prevented wearing of the toe, thus 

 giving the limb a false position and interfering with free 

 movement. 



'My shoe has not these defects; for while accom- 

 plishing the same object, it protects the heels, wears regu- 

 larly along its circumference, like the foot itself in favour- 

 able conditions. 



' It is a solid artificial border, replacing the inferior 

 margin of the wall, which is not strong enough to resist 

 our hard roads. It is no more than this. 



