488 
ON SHOEING HORSES. 
But, Jack, this is not telling us how to shoe these horses, 
begging your pardon for the interruption. 
Oh, no offence, Bill! only let me go on, and you will find I 
am doing it: you began with springing, and I will finish with it. 
I cannot, however, get that same expansion out of my head. After 
B. Clark published his first experiments, one Mr. Jeff, or some¬ 
thing like it, began screwing, not like Gloag, but laterally by means 
of the hinge shoe, clips in the inside of the bars, and a screw- 
propeller through the heels of the shoe, by which he tried to widen 
a number of contracted feet; and, as far as that went, I believe he 
did it most effectually (for my master came down to Colchester, 
where I then worked, and, being crammed in town, must needs 
try it too). There is an old remark of Professor Coleman’s—“ The 
medical man who relieves the patient from pain immediately gains 
credit; but the veterinary surgeon who cannot make a lame horse 
sound gives no satisfaction.” So, having made horses that were in 
work lame by these means, and particularly the class of horses 
above described, the projector of this mode of expansion was 
“ whistled down the wind to prey at fortune.” Now, if I was to 
be like the bard’s monkey, and “ empty the basket at the house top 
to try (or rather, to let you, my mates, try) conclusions,” 1 should 
very soon be where Mr. B. Clark describes others to have gone. 
“ Many young men, since the establishment of the College, have 
been engaged in this profession, who would have succeeded in the 
ordinary occupations of life, but they have sunk under the diffi¬ 
culties of this.” Yet, in the face of all this, and he was a shrewd 
observer of horses’ feet, he still looked for expansion. The half¬ 
penny, too, is kept up outside the shop, because it goes on, as I 
have shewn, only when the horses are outside of it. 
But you are not a young man, Jack; so come to the point. 
Anon, anon, sir; I should have told you before, when I read car¬ 
riages, you are to understand horses: that is the point. 
“ Thus the carriage is preserved from injury, and the materials 
of the road are not broken; and in surmounting obstacles, instead 
of the whole carriage with its load being lifted over them, the 
springs allow the wheels to rise, while the weights suspended upon 
them are scarcely moved from their horizontal level; so that the 
whole of the weight could be supported on the springs, and all 
other parts supposed devoid of inertia, while the springs themselves 
are very long and extremely flexible. This consequence would 
clearly follow, however much it may wear the appearance of a 
paradox, that such a carriage may be drawn over a road abound¬ 
ing in small obstacles without agitation, and without any material 
addition being made to the moving power or draught.”— Gilbert. 
Now this is the way I have shod, not only those, but all classes 
of horses, with benefit. 
