12G ON THE EXPANSION OF THE HORSE'S FOOT. 
how to conduct it properly, and taken a full-grown foot, he would 
have found a different result. 
\yith regard to the general question, I know not whether to 
attribute it to the dulness of his perceptions, or to the “ mist" 
which he says “ envelopes the subject,” that he ‘‘never could 
discover this much-talked-of expansion, or opening and collaps¬ 
ing of the foot of the horse.” I beg leave to ask this gentleman, 
if he has never seen a horse come up from grass, without shoes, 
with feet half or three-quarters of an inch wider than they were 
before? Has he never seen the heels of a common shoe rubbed 
bright, by the ineffectual attempts of the foot to expand in 
spite of the nails? And, above all, has he never applied his 
thumb and finger to the heels of a well-worn expansion shoe, and 
seen the shoe and foot collapsing and expanding under the opera¬ 
tion ? If he has not done this, let him do it the first opportunity, 
and it will lead to a discovery which, it seems, he could not make 
before. 
The above are evidences of the expansive nature of the foot, 
that have come under the observation of most men, and are easily 
comprehended by even the meanest groom’s capacity. But 
there are others, drawn from a consideration of its anatomical 
structure, which I had almost forgotten to adduce; for his as¬ 
sertions are such as to make us forget that he is a veterinary 
practitioner who has actually dissected the foot, and in so doing 
could hardly have avoided perceiving, when it had been once 
pointed out to him, the elastic principle that pervades it. 
For example, could he not discover that it was cleft poste¬ 
riorly beyond its centre, and was filled up by a highly elastic 
organ, rendered still more so by a series of arches forming some¬ 
what the figure of an inverted W (^\), all having the obvious 
office of expansion, and power of dilatation ? Can he tell us for 
what purpose the frog w'as given, being an elastic substance, 
nearly as much so as Indian rubber, if it was not to expand under 
the weight ? In fact, the foot is fraught with proof sufficient of 
the existence and necessity of this indispensable principle in all 
feet; but as it is impossible, especially for Mr. Caleb Morgan, 
and those who are by inclination blind, to see this expansion 
when the animal is trotting or galloping, and equally impossible 
to calculate the increased force with which by such momentum 
it meets the ground, which must be many times that of the mere 
weight; so we are forced to draw such conclusions from the 
structure of the part and the apparent intentions of nature. And 
how much greater is it then than while standing in a state of 
perfect rest, when the weight alone, opposed as it is by the fric¬ 
tion that takes place between level surfaces (that is between the 
