498 ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 



siderably below or above the common rate, or because their 

 use is plainly different from that to which the ordinary large 

 nails were devoted, we shall arrive at some conclusions which 

 will be not quite so positive as those which we find from lath- 

 nails, but which are, however, little less convincing when they 

 come to be exhibited in decennial and general averages. 



We shall find, if the reader is willing to assume the general 

 identity of these numerous and perplexing kinds of c large 

 nails,' that up to the time of the Plague the price of a hundred 

 nails of such a character is, when estimated by tens of years, 

 a little above or a little below the general average, namely 

 3^., and that after that great event it rises to 6\d., the rise 

 being nearly 79 per cent. We should not expect that large 

 nails would exhibit quite so great an increase as the smaller 

 sorts, since less labour in the aggregate was spent in fashioning 

 them. 



A thousand lath-nails would weigh in our own time about 

 3 Ibs. avoirdupois, and a hundred common board-nails would 

 weigh nearly i lb., the latter being more than three times as 

 heavy as the former. Such nails were, I make no doubt, the 

 spike or board-nails of the records. 



There are, however, some kinds of nails called also c great 

 spike,' which cannot possibly be reckoned with those which 

 form the material for the calculations given above, since the 

 price is so very high. Of these there seem to be at least two 

 kinds. One series, of which eleven entries are found, give 

 an average of nearly is. \\d. the hundred; another, of 

 which twenty-three are found, give an average of if. \\d. 

 the hundred. 



On the Irish estates we find a kind called c woh' or c wouwe- 

 nails.' I have no idea of the meaning of this term. 



In the year 1289 the Ospring account contains an entry of 

 a thousand sarp-nails at i\d. the hundred. 



In the year 1288 the Bosham account gives an entry of 

 c tingle nails' at \\d. the hundred. This is perhaps a cor- 

 ruption of c shingle.' 



