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REVIEWS. 
make use of in other countries (save France) ; concluding 
with instructions in shoeing the mule, the ass, and the ox. 
Notwithstanding the method of shoeing horses practised in 
France is different from that pursued by us, or by other 
countries, still it must be obvious to any one conversant with 
the subject that the principles on which horses are shod must 
be identical, or rather the same in all countries, since horses’ 
feet do not differ in their orgasm ; neither is there any 
difference in the means of fixing the shoe to the foot, whether 
that shoe be made of one metal or another, and whether the 
nail used for the purpose be of this or that shape. Coleman 
was in the habit of saying, there were but two principles of 
shoeing : one being that the shoe must rest upon the wall ; the 
other, that the sole must not sustain the pressure of the shoe. 
That the weight of the horse must be borne by the curve in 
the wall, that being the strongest and most projecting part of 
the hoof, and the only one which can receive the nails, is 
certain ; but that the sole too cannot receive, under certain 
conditions of it, pressure also, is now knowm to be untrue. 
Perhaps in no country in the v r orld has the art of shoeing 
had more attention paid to it — more engrossed the time and 
talent of first-rate men, than in this; and yet by the French 
w r e are thought to be very inferior to themselves. In fact, 
inferiority in the art is by the two countries — England and 
France — mutually recriminated one upon the other. Before 
we have finished the inquiry we are now 7 engaged in, we will 
endeavour to thrown some light on this controversy. 
It is not our intention so much to critically examine 
the work before us — one that is held as standard autho- 
rity with the nation in which it has been produced — as to 
glean from it some interesting sketches on subjects in which 
w 7 e all feel deeply concerned for the fate often of our best 
horses. 
“ It is pretty generally admitted that the art of shoeing 
holds no very remote date. Ancient authors date it no further 
back than the fifth century. Rey divides its history into 
three different epochs : the first including the period of its 
non-existence, during the time of the Greeks and Romans, 
w ho did not practise it, though the Romans, under exceptional 
