CHAP. I.] ELEVATION AFFECTS THE FOOT. 47 



Our ideas, however, on this subject are not so 

 fixed; for we have found the best form of the 

 hoof differ, according to the shape of the tivo pas- 

 terns, as they regard the hoof and each other ; 

 deeming that the best, in its particular case, where 

 the small one follows the same declination as the 

 hoof, and the large pastern ascends twenty degrees 

 nearer to the upright, as before stated. 



The preceding Jigure shews the outline of three 

 feet of different degrees of elevation ; two of which are 

 dotted in the line of the coronet, or orifice, into which 

 the thickest end of the small pastern-bone sinks, and 

 rests upon the springy substance attached to the 

 inside of the hoof; and which bone, we naturally 

 expect, should ascend out of, and take the same 

 direction as the hoof whence it springs. Any de- 

 parture from this rule of nature is clearly an ap- 

 proach towards disease. In the paragraph above, 

 we shewed what mischief might be derived from an 



of explication we know of, would astonish the more complex reasoners 

 upon abstract questions, if they were not the first persons to over- 

 shoot their own mark in their eager pursuit of nice distinctions and 

 fine drawn arguments. In the face of the foregoing correction of two 

 writers of repute, and with the book and page before him, does the ex- 

 cellent good judge, Nimrod, whilst quoting largely from our labours, 

 commit a similar blunder to that of Messrs. White and Clark. He 

 quotes this opinion of ours as 35 instead of 45, and yet farther onward 

 he quotes from the concluding sentence at page 48, but there pre- 

 serves the right number of degrees, viz. 45. We do not charge this 

 upon the unknown as an incongruity, but merely adduce it as a tame 

 blunder in copying us without duly weighing the affair, — a mark of 

 deference for our statements we neither expected nor think desirable. 



