9 
ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HORSE^S FOOT. 
for the instantaneous perception of the consistence and in- 
equalities of the ground over which it moved ; and while it 
possessed this quality in a high degree,, it was also indispens- 
able that it should be gifted with the properties of resistance, 
mobility, and lightness to an extent necessary for the sup- 
port and progression of the body, in addition to the rigidity 
essential to impulsion, the elasticity and suppleness needful 
to avert reactions or jar, and the durability and rapidity of 
renovation demanded by incessant wear. Here we have a 
combination of requirements whose simultaneous existence 
in the one organ might almost be deemed incompatible, so 
opposite do they appear : insensibility with a delicate sense 
of touch ; resistance with lightness ; rigidity with elasticity ; 
and suppleness with durability. And yet, as we shall see 
hereafter, all these objects are attained in a manner which 
is as startling as it is, perhaps, unequalled. 
The late Bracy Clark, speaking of the horse, says : “With 
him is accomplished one of the most difficult problems in 
mechanics, that is to say, the moving of a large and heavy 
body, with an extraordinary velocity, and for the surmount- 
ing this difficulty a remarkable degree of solidity appears to 
have been imparted to his foot by a hoof of one piece, in 
order that nothing of the momentum afforded by the osseous 
and muscular machinery should be lost.” 
In its principal attributes it far surpasses the human hand 
or foot; and while it is devoid of the faculty of grasping 
possessed by the hand of man and some other creatures, it 
possesses the sense of touch in a sufficient degree to make it 
conscious of the nature of the ground over which it moves ; 
at the same time the organ is beautifully adapted for certain 
important and special purposes. In the progressive series 
from complexity to simplicity, from the pentadactylous hand 
or foot of man and other creatures, through those with four, 
three, and two toes touching the ground, to the Eocene 
Palseotherium, whose two lateral digits were nearly as long 
as the middle one, and the fossil horse, the immediate pre- 
decessor of our own soliped, whose middle toe alone sup- 
ported its weight on ordinary occasions, we find the qualities 
for which it is so pre-eminently distinguished gradually 
manifesting themselves. 
It will be unanimously accorded that the horse ranks 
high above all those creatures of the animal kingdom which 
have submitted themselves to domestication and toil for the 
benefit of mankind. The varied uses to which he has been 
applied since first brought from a savage condition have 
been largly owing, no doubt, to the unmatchable combination 
