_Money._--The precious metals, shaped for purposes of traffic, at once stamp crannog “finds” with a modern, or at least with an historic date. Very few coins, however, have come to light; the most numerous are of the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, some of them being forgeries. In the crannog of Cloonfinlough the coins varied in date from one of the Emperor Hadrian to a specimen of the brass money of James II. One coin was discovered under such strange circumstances that it claims special mention:--In the lake adjoining the glebe house, in the parish of Aghnamullen, county Monaghan, there are two islands, and about the year 1850 one of them was for the first time ploughed, and many curious antiquities turned up. In 1863, the rector then in possession, while seated on the island, and peering into the water, observed what to him appeared a button on the leaf of a water-plant growing up from the bottom of the lake; on pulling the leaf, this proved, however, to be an ancient coin--a half groat of the reign of Edward III. The natural growth of the aqueous vegetation had thus lifted to the surface of the lough some of its buried treasures.[156] Strange as is this incident, it is surpassed by one related in connexion with the discovery of a silver penny of King John. It appears that upon preparing a fish of the bream species, taken in Dalkey Sound, the coin referred to was found in its stomach, and as it is on record that some time during the reign of John, a ship containing a large sum of money was sunk close to the place where the fish was captured, it is but reasonable to suppose that the coin in question had formed a portion of the lost treasure. [Illustration: Fig. 184.--Cheek-pieces of Bits.]