THE NON-EXPANSION OF HORSES' FEET. 97 
never undergone the much-dreaded operation and baneful effects 
of shoeing ! and, as I understand him, they must be .well-bred 
ones. That the laminse elongate or descend, 1 am prepared to 
admit, thereby causing the vein, as the smiths call it, to descend 
also; and that if the frog and heels meet the ground, as they 
ought to do, the side cartilages have motion to a certain degree. 
Having occasion to be at Mr. Theobald’s, of Stockvvell, and 
aware that every facility would be offered me to try the experi¬ 
ment, I determined to measure the feet of some of the colts 
with the calipers, as ‘‘ Nubia” describes he measured his mare’s 
feet. There being plenty of scope for trying it fully and fairly 
on some of the best bred stock in England, that never had been 
under the influence of the iron prison and w'edges,” as Nubia” 
terms the shoe and nails ; and that it might be tried fairly, I got a 
friend to stand by and see me perform, who is not only a good 
mathematician, but who is frequently and practically in the habit 
of using calipers and compasses. We caught four of the young 
horses out of the paddocks, and applied the instruments to each 
of the fore feet repeatedly. The result was, clearly to my friend, 
myself, and the head groom (who merits our thanks for the 
civility and anxiety he evinced that the experiment might be fully 
and fairly made), that there is not an atom of difference in the 
width of the horse’s foot, whether on or off the ground — whether 
standing on one or both fore feet, or whether with twenty stone 
on his back, or nothing ! and that all this tirade about expan¬ 
sion is entirely fanciful and theoretical. Three days afterwards, 
I repeated the same experiments on the same feet, with pre¬ 
cisely the same results. A horse came to be shod with a remark¬ 
ably good foot; I placed a man between eleven and tw'elve 
stone on his back, held up one foot, and then tried the experi¬ 
ment—same result as the others. 1 have often occasion to rasp 
the quarters to the blood, previously to turning out; and when 
the frog has been the chief support to the lateral parts of the 
foot, have tried the experiment on many of these, whilst made 
to stand on one foot, and, in several instances, with a couple of 
men on their backs, yet no expansion whatever took place. 
