THE HORSE’S FOOT. 
151 
been proposed to obtain the dilatation by means of a strong sole 
of cautchouc, placed between the shoe and the foot, leaving the 
frog full; very thin where it rests upon the shoe and the foot, 
and becoming thicker towards the inner border of the shoe, which 
it overlaps. First it rests in the groove of the bars, and then 
protrudes upon the fiat of the shoe, and bears on the ground at 
the time of rest. This elastic mass, compressed at the moment 
of contact, slightly dilates the shoe, which is articulated, or, what 
is better, very narrow at the toe, and square; the heels also are 
thus slowly and gradually dilated. 
Goodwin also has invented a very ingenious, but too compli¬ 
cated shoe, composed of three articulated pieces. From the 
centre of the median piece a prolongation of iron extends to the 
back of the frog, and is of sufficient thickness to be perforated, 
the hole having a thread through which a screw is introduced, 
running on each side. The branches of the shoe have three nail- 
holes, and from the inner border of the heel rises a clip so turned 
as to rest on the origin of the bar. The mechanism of the shoe 
is easy to understand, each branch being opened by the play of 
the screw which passes through the prolongation of the median 
piece, one extremity of which rests upon this prolongation, while 
the other presses upon the inner border of the movable branch. 
The Goodwin shoe has been essentially improved by Fouris 
(fig. 18). It is a bar shoe, the bar being thicker than the rest of 
