160 OBSERVATIONS ON INJURIES, ETC., AMONG ARMY HORSES. 
fourteen ounces; the pair of hind shoes and nails weighing 
thirteen ounces. The horse was hard worked for hunting 
and tracking purposes, over roads and country of every de- 
scription, and though these shoes remained on for three 
months, they were not half worn out, neither were they dis- 
placed. Other horses, including trap-horses, upon which we 
experimented, wore shoes of less weight than the above, but 
the principle was neither that in ordinary use, nor the one 
patented by “ Charlier.” In due course we hope to recount 
the few experiments alluded to, not by way of producing 
anything new, for in this we were disappointed, but did not 
know it till we received Mr. Fleming’s invaluable “ Horse 
Shoes and Horse Shoeing,” in October, 1869. 
We had been experimenting on a small scale for six months 
on a principle that we imagined was quite a new — let us confess 
it — an invention. Our spirits were, therefore, not a little 
damped to find in Mr. Fleming’s work, a plate representing, 
with but trifling differences, the appearance of four shod 
specimens of feet that we had prepared in June and July, 
1869. The principle was known more than a hundred years 
ago, but it does not, as far as we can make out, appear to 
have been recently adopted. In our application of this prin- 
ciple we made some slight differences. But we are overrun- 
ning our subject. 
Coming back to injuries; there are to be seen amongst 
artillery horses large scars crossing the outer lateral cartilage, 
in consequence of the part having been run over by wheels. 
If a portion of the structure, from which the hoof is 
secreted, has been carried away, the regularity of the coronary 
line will be, after cicatrization, destroyed, and so will be the 
even surface of the hoof under the site of the injury; the 
quarter, in fact, becomes “false.” We know of some cases 
where the quality of the horn is inferior to that secreted from 
other parts of the coronet ; it commences to split or crumble 
before it reaches the shoe, and therefore never takes any share 
in sustaining the superimposed weight. In one case the lateral 
cartilage is ossified. 
Next, we have to remark upon the inordinate and useless 
amount of branding that is permitted in the army. Every 
horse is more or less subjected to the practice of being 
lettered and numbered on his forefeet. In the artillery the 
anterior aspect of the right forefoot bears the letter or num- 
ber of a brigade, as well as the letters that denote the branch 
of the corps. The same part of the left foot bears the letter 
of a battery, and the “ battery number.” 
For example, look at a Horse Artillery trooper. We will 
