o37 
MR. B. CLARK’S HIPPODONOMIA. 
will add an excellent observation of’ our author’s own : “ Indeed it 
is lii«'li time the wretched style of declamation and abusive 
writing on these subjects ‘should give way to a better taste,— 
that of real investigation and research, as in other objects of a 
scientific nature, by which alone the art can receive any useful 
accessions, and the horse be benefitted.”—p. 67. 
Mr Bracy Clark takes great credit to himself as “ the disco¬ 
verer” of the elastic principle of the horse’s foot. It were to be 
wished that in some part of his work he had precisely defined 
the nature and extent of this principle. We hear a great deal 
about the expansibility of the foot, but we have not one graphic 
sketch, one perfect picture of the thing. That which comes the 
nearest to it we find in page 26. “ But before entering into a 
description of these different parts, we believe it will greatly faci¬ 
litate our right apprehensions on the subject, if we first take 
into our view and consideration a most indispensable property 
necessary to the construction of all feet, which though of an ab¬ 
stract nature, is able, if duly reflected upon, to explain the mis¬ 
takes and hidden mysteries that have for so many ages involved 
this art of shoeing, and concealed its wretched effects in almost 
impenetrable darkness, and which simple property every part of 
the hoof is formed in relation and made subservient to. I here 
allude to the simple principle of elasticity , or the condition of an 
elastic yielding of the hoof to every degree of impression of the 
weight, or of exertion of the animal brought upon it. 
“This inestimable property it is that guarantees the foot from 
fatigue, preserves it from jar and the body from reaction and 
concussion, and all the injuries which a too solid resistance would 
have occasioned to both, and probably assisting also the animal 
in his advances by a return to its former figure after distention.” 
To this he adds, p. 18, “Any one would naturally infer that, 
if I was employed in making shoes to avoid the nails, it was be¬ 
cause I saw the ill effects of the nails upon the foot.—No such 
thing: I had at this period no distinct apprehension of it; and 
it was to avoid the use of shoeing smiths and their mal-practices, 
and in order that every man might be, or by his servant at least, 
his own shoer—so near fnay we be to a thing, and not perceive 
it. And when the thought first came over me, that it was the 
resistance of the nails that caused all this mischief, it was ac¬ 
companied by an involuntary suffusion of countenance that I 
shall never forget, from feeling that I saw, probably for the first 
time, what had never been seen before in the same sense of view 
at least; and the feeling was immediately accompanied with a 
happy assurance that the evil was then truly seen, and that it 
would be ultimately removed.” 
VOL. in. 4 c 
