NOVELTIES IN SHOEING. 
631 
ing this short time they were almost decomposed, the crust at the 
heels had cut through them, portions were entirely gone, and the 
whole of what remained were brittle, black, nay, in places quite 
friable. This is no more than might have been expected, for the 
action of the urine, and the pressure combined, were certain to 
produce such an effect. I should state, that the thickness of these 
rims was that of good stout sole-leather. This was a failure of 
No. 2 novelty. 
Number three novelty had a more promising appearance : — 
This was a shoe to prevent slipping, formed of malleable cast iron, 
and consisting of a plate of metal three-sixteenths of an inch in thick- 
ness, in the shape of a horseshoe, with a wide cover; at each heel, 
and at the toe there were cast on the plate two stout eminences, of 
about half an inch in height, situate across the web from without 
to within ; those at the heel being about three quarters of an inch 
apart, the one at the toe about an inch or rather more ; these were 
made dovetailed, so that the corresponding wedge-piece could only 
be put in sideways, and, when there, these wedges were kept in 
situ by a small square wedge of wrought iron, and long enough 
when driven through, to be turned in the nature of a coarse clinch on 
the side of the opposite eminence. The shoe had ten holes in the 
plate, two of them being under the toe wedge ; the plate was to 
be applied to the foot before the wedges were fixed in their places. 
The object of these contrivances was to be able to renew the 
wedges as often as requisite, without having to remove the plate 
to which they were attached, so that the foot might not be broken. 
The horse stood consequently on three points, and raised about 
an inch and a quarter or a little more from the ground, very similar 
to the snow-shoe in use in the north of Europe ; but with this 
difference, that the base in the latter is increased, in the former it 
is diminished. 
The shoes were put on by a good workman in my employ on 
the Saturday afternoon, consequently did not work in them on that 
or the next day, Sunday. On the following Wednesday the horse 
was brought back to have other shoes put on, in the place of what 
remained of the patent ones : these were worn out and broken, 
one entirely lost — the heel of one with the wedge and its side-holders 
broken off ; the toe piece of another worn down, together with the 
side holders, and the wrought iron cross wedge ; the others worn 
down so as to completely defeat their object, and the plates which 
represented the shoe in all of them bent, twisted, and contorted in 
a way that hardly seemed possible for it to be done while on the 
foot : but such was the fact. This evidently arose from the plate 
not being of sufficient substance to bear the leverage and unequal 
