Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/279

 iron spear-heads, and ' a horse-shoe of unusual shape '—round and broad in front, narrowing very much backwards, and having its extreme ends brought almost close behind, and rather pointed inwards, with the nail-holes still perfect.' No drawing accompanies this description.

In making a deep excavation at Lothbury, London, in 1847, at a depth of 16 feet below the surface, the workmen came upon a number of Roman reliquiæ, consisting of iron keys, Samien and other pottery, and various other articles, amongst which was an iron horse-shoe (fig. 88). It is of the usual fashion of that epoch, is only three inches six-eighths long, three inches five-eighths wide, and about three-quarters of an inch at the broadest part of the toe. It narrows very much towards the heels, and there are but faint traces of calkins. The one branch is a little longer than the other, and altogether the specimen is thin and light. The peculiar shape of this horse-shoe, the depth at which it was discovered, and its being mingled with undoubted Roman remains, proves that it must be of high antiquity, pointing to the Roman-British period as the age of its fabrication. Another shoe of the same character was found in Moorfields, in the line of the old London Wall, some