656 
came to two large logs of oak. They were put across, 
as if to dam up the water and make a fosse round the 
Fairies Hill ; they were about twenty feet below the surface, 
perfectly sound, and quite black. 
Mr. Jebson asked if the dagger had been minutely 
examined to see whether there was any inscription 
upon it ? 
Mr. Wilson said it had not been examined by a powerful 
magnifier that he was aware of. There were some marks, 
but he thought it would be difficult to say that they 
were anything more than accidental scratches, except the 
ornamentation. 
The Rev. Mr. Trollope said he had paid particular atten- 
tion to articles of this sort, and he was quite satisfied, with- 
out examining the dagger now exhibited with a magnifying 
glass, that it had no letters upon it. They occasionally 
found Runic inscriptions, but the punctures upon this 
dagger were simply ornamentation, certainly not letters. 
The question of — Who made this weapon ? was well worthy 
of consideration, and particularly so as it was not an easy 
one to answer. He believed, and he was strengthened in 
that belief by the best authorities in England, that these 
daggers, of which they had there a specimen, belonged to 
the same period as the leaf saws, also made of the same 
metal, and it was not positively pretended by any authority 
to what nation they belonged ; but they believed they were 
justified in saying that they belonged to nations long prior 
to the time of the first Roman invasion in this country. 
Mr. O'Callaghan also took part in the discussion, and 
mentioned the curious and amusing circumstance that four 
brass plates, which were deposited in the museum at 
Florence in the fifteenth century, had remained there 
until 1848 without anybody knowing to what nation they 
belonged, when a gentleman who visited the museum 
