FERY JNCIEAT SHOE. 177 



density the turf assumes as it becomes old and forms the 

 inferior layers, — the shoe discovered at the bottom ought 

 to have lain there at least 2400 years. These same turf- 

 beds enclose, or rather cover, a place where there is char- 

 coal beneath 19 feet 8 inches of peat, and this being on 

 the primitive ground, gives a period of more than 4000 

 years since it was laid there. In the neighbourhood there 

 are iron scoriae indicating an ancient forge, and in this 

 country, where iron mines only exist, wood is carbonized 

 for no other purpose than to work that metal, and all the 

 ancient forges used nothing else. 



' More than twenty of these shoes have been collected 

 in the soil of a Celtic establishment between Delemont 

 and Soyhiere, on the right bank of the Byrse, territory of 

 Courroux, and near Vorbourg (fig. 51). There were no 

 traces of Roman articles, nor yet those of a posterior age, 

 but only antiquities of the stone, those of the bronze, and, 

 lastly, of the iron periods. The last was characterized 

 only by horse-shoes, and by two discs resembling the 

 iron money of the Spartans. On the other bank of the 

 river similar shoes were also found (figs. 30, 31, 32), and 

 two beautiful lance-heads or Gaulish javelins. Near the 

 first shoes was a pointed spur. Another shoe of the same 

 form has been met with in the track of an antique road, near 

 Saint-Braix, not far from one of those ancient forges 

 where objects belonging to the stone age have been dis- 

 covered. A neighbouring hamlet is called Cesais or 

 Caesar, a characteristic name also given to a ridge or 

 mound near which passes a Roman road joining the 

 plateau of the Franches-Montagnes with the enclosure of 



Doubs, and which shows traces of military works. The 



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