574 
ON SHOEING HORSES. 
our senses, but which is shewn to be painfully appreciable to the 
horse. 
Conclusion 6th :—Is sheer twaddle, unworthy of comment] 
Conclusion 7th:—That the laminae themselves are inelastic in 
the longitudinal direction, is self evident, from the fact of their being 
attached so intimately to a body (the horny crust) in this direction 
also inelastic; that the elasticity of this part of the foot, as has 
been shewn by Mr. Percivall, is due to the presence of an elastic 
tissue covering the coffin bone, and allowing of a certain degree of 
separation of that bone from the laminae. 
Much has been said on the expansion of the horse’s foot; but, to 
my mind, a vast deal of time and space have been wasted in re¬ 
finement, much akin to “ gilding refined gold,” or “ adding per¬ 
fume to the violet.” Look at the structure of the foot how you 
will, you find it composed of some parts of yielding and others of 
an unyielding nature, besides those which belong to the locomotive 
powers of the limb; some of these parts are alone capable of yield¬ 
ing in one direction, as the crust and cartilages; some compressible 
as well as elastic, as the elastic frog—which, by the way, has 
been only looked on as being elastic, but it is, in fact, both elastic 
and compressible, two very different functions for a part to be 
possessed of. 
The fact of the principal action of the foot being a “ yielding 
backwards and downwards,” is one of those things so generally 
known and understood that it has not been thought requisite to be 
particularly taught, any more than it is necessary to teach that 
the action of the jaws is to open and shut; and had it not been 
for the particular emphasis which has been laid on expansion by 
the Coleman and Clark school—a hobby which has been run so 
hard that it has been for years completely foundered—the more 
simple and true knowledge of the functions of the foot would not 
have been so overlaid. 
The action of the foot is elasticity in every direction, save in 
the direction of the fibres of the hoof; the greatest in degree at the 
coronet, the more especially at the heels; the least so at the lower 
part of the circumference of the hoof; at the toe itself none at all. 
With these observations, which have been penned in sorrow, 
not in anger, I shall conclude this part of my subject, and shall 
proceed in my next to consider some of the varieties of feet, before 
I enter on the description of different kinds of shoes, and to what 
kind of feet they are the best adapted. 
I am, Mr. Editor, 
Yours obediently. 
Sept. 3, 1849. 
