229 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE SUPPLY OF HORSES ADAPTED TO THE REQUIRE¬ 
MENTS OF THE ENGLISH ARxMY; WITH NOTES ON THE 
REMOUNT SYSTEM IN THE FRENCH ARMY. 
i 
By J. Wilkinson, Veterinary Surgeon General. 
In the history of the horse, it would be interesting to trace 
the changes which time, climate, and the control of man 
have effected in the animaPs frame and constitution. To 
the colossal fossil remains which have been discovered in 
America, no exact date can be assigned; but they are 
evidently those of a gigantic race, long since extinct, which 
differed essentially from that now on the earth. If we would 
learn what was the prevailing type of the horse of the early 
Asiatic empires, a wonderfully faithful record has been pre¬ 
served in the Nineveh marbles; whilst the sculpture and 
painting of Greece and Rome will enable us to form as true 
a conception of the then existing type, making due allowance 
for the exercise of poetical imagination in those works of art. 
In the ever-varying and ever-beautiful form and character of 
the figures represented by these artists, a harmony prevails 
from which we may fairly conclude that the conformation is, 
as a whole, true to nature. 
Some important points^’ which we recognise in the Elgin 
Marbles, and the various antiquities of the Acropolis, have 
been successfully and rightly reproduced in modern works, 
such as the beautiful bas-relief of the Passage of the Red 
Sea ” in the last Great Exhibition, and are still to be traced 
in one or two extant breeds of north-western Europe; points 
especially affecting the head, neck, and body, and exhibiting 
a configuration which we in England by no means seek to 
imitate. 
In respect of numbers, although the horses and chariots of 
the Egyptian and Asiatic monarchies were numerous, it was 
reserved for Tamerlane and Bajazet to assemble the most 
mighty hosts on record, when between them they paraded 
700,000 horses ! The requirements of modern European 
armies are dwarfed by such a comparison, and our own 
numbers are small even when compared with those of some 
continental nations; but the ordinary demands of our peace 
establishment of 13,000 or 14,000 horses by no means indi- 
