DISADVANTAGES OF HEAVY SHOES. 6s7 



remark that the flexible horn is the best modifier of con- 

 cussion, and that as the thickness of metal increases, so 

 does the jar. 



But this supposed jar is the least of the ills attending 

 the use of heavy shoes. The difference in the muscular 

 fatigue of a limb, after carrying at its extremity for a long 

 distance a clumsy mass of iron, weighing, perhaps, two 

 pounds, and afterwards another of one or one and a half 

 pounds, is astonishing. I cannot, perhaps, do better than 

 quote the remarks of Professor Bouley, when discussing 

 this subject in Paris a short time ago. He says, speaking 

 of the omnibus horses : ' If, at the termination of a day's 

 work, we calculate the weight represented by the mass of 

 heavy shoes that a horse is condemned to carry at each 

 step, we will arrive at a formidable array of figures, and 

 in this way be able to estimate the amount of force use- 

 lessly expended by the animal, in raising the shoes that 

 surcharge his feet. The calculation I have made pos- 

 sesses an eloquence that dispenses with very long com- 

 mentaries. Suppose that the weight of a shoe is looo 

 grammes ; it is not excessive to admit that a horse trots at 

 the rate of one step every second, or sixty steps a minute. 

 In a minute, then, the limb of a horse whose foot carries 

 I kilogramme makes an effort necessary to raise, kilo- 

 gramme after kilogramme, a weight of 60 kilogrammes. 

 For the four limbs, this weight in a minute is represented 

 by 60X4^ 240 kilogrammes ; for the four feet during 

 an hour the weight is 14,000 kilogrammes; and for four 

 hours, the mean duration of a day's work in these omni- 

 buses, the total amount of weight raised has reached the 



respectable figure of 57,000 kilogrammes. But the move- 



42 



