Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/341

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
ENGLISH SPECIMENS.
313

third class is from an excavation in London, and is described by C. Roach Smith.[1] It differs but little from the one found in the Roman camp at Dalheim, and is six inches in length (fig. 131).

fig. 131

The British Museum contains six of these mysterious instruments, one of them more curious than any yet discovered. It has only one real lateral clip, the usual two being quite in front, where they are clumsily united to form a projecting hook. The sole is very narrow, and much oxidized on the ground surface, and the ordinary hook-like termination at the end is present (fig. 132).

fig. 132

The others belong to the three classes; one of the first has the side clips long and thin, and looking as if the hooks had been worn or rusted off, and the sole had been repaired by welding on a thin and narrow strip of iron in shape somewhat like a horse-shoe. The actual sole is six inches long, but the total length is six and three-quarters inches. The width across at the clips is four and three-quarters inches.

The others are somewhat different in length and

  1. Catalogue of the Museum of London Antiquities, p. 77, 1854. Collectanea Antiqua, vol. iii. p. 128.