_Lough Gur._--_Ante_, pp. 6, 25-6, 83, 150, 156, &c. There was found here a remarkably fine bronze spear-head, now in the collection of General A. Pitt Rivers, F. R. S. The lower part of its socket was ornamented with gold (see figs. 214 and 215). Homer more than once mentions the gold ring, or ferrule, around the spear-head of Hector. The two following relics--also from Lough Gur--may be seen in the British Museum:--(1) A moiety of a stone mould for casting spear-heads and other pointed objects of various sizes: “it is a four-sided prism, six and a-half inches long, and two and a half inches broad at one end of each face, and one and three-quarter inches at the other. A second similar prism would, it has been observed, give four perfect moulds for casting spear-heads slightly varying in form, but in each case provided with side-loops. These loops are, as usual, semicircular in form on the mould, and were no doubt destined to be flattened in the usual manner by a subsequent process of hammering. There is one special feature in this mould, viz., that at the base of the blade there is a transverse notch in the stone, evidently destined to receive a small pin which would serve to keep the core for the socket in its proper position. There is a similar transverse notch in one of the smaller moulds for the pointed objects”[241] (fig. 216). (2) An iron sword, which is ornamented on the blade thus, [Illustration]. The cross-like form does not necessarily denote that the weapon belongs to the Christian era, for an almost similar symbol [Illustration] appears in an ancient Mexican MS. now in the Belfast Museum.[242] [Illustration: Fig. 216.--Stone Mould for casting weapons, from Lough Gur.] COUNTY CLARE.