land, where they are most numerous; they are not mentioned by the old writers, not even in the account given by the Romans of their incursion into Switzerland in the last century before Christ. The fact that the remains of the lake dwellings were not discovered before, can be explained by two things; first, the dwellings erected on the piles have quite disappeared ; and then some of the piles themselves are covered with bog-as in those places where the water of the lakes has receded in the course of ages-and some with clay, sand, mud, or calcareous tufa, or they lie several feet, sometimes 30 feet, deep below the surface of the water. After the lake dwellings had once been discovered, numerous analogies to them were soon found. Herodotus writing in the fifth century before Christ says, that about fifty years before his time the Persian general Megabazus failed to subdue a Thracian tribe, because they dwelt in the middle of the Lake Prasias, in huts which stood on high piles, and which were only connected by a narrow bridge with the mainland. If any of them married he had to obtain three new piles in order to increase the size of the dwelling. The children were fastened by a cord round their feet, lest they should fall into the lake. Empty baskets were let down through trap doors by cords, and by this means the fish which abounded in the lake were caught, and they furnished food for the inhabitants, and also, as Herodotus assures us, for the horses and beasts of burden. The Arabian geographer Abulfeda, writing in the fourteenth century, speaks of a lake in Syria in which Christian fishermen lived in huts built of wood and resting on piles. The celebrated English discoverer

of the ruins of Nineveh, Layard, found lake dwellings among an Arab tribe living in the marshes of the Euphrates. Other travellers have found similar dwellings in our century amongst the Negroes of the Ischadda Lake in Central Africa, amongst the Papuans of New Guinea, the Dajahs of Borneo, and in other places.1

These recorded instances, and the researches made on the spot, prove that on these piles in the Swiss and in other lakes there stood in olden times whole villages of huts, which were reached from the land either by narrow bridges or in boats, and which therefore afforded to their inhabitants a certain protection against enemies and wild beasts. On the other hand, savants are still uncertain whether these huts were the real and only regular dwelling-places of those who built them, or whether they were only used as temporary places of refuge in danger, or as store-houses for the safe keeping of grain and other kinds of food, of implements, etc. Only conjectures can, of course, be made as to the nature of the structures which were erected on the piles, as only the piles themselves are preserved. Beams and boards. were laid on the upright piles; the walls of the huts built on them were probably formed by upright poles through which willows were woven; this framework was probably plastered over with clay. The gaps in the floor may have been filled up with rushes, over which a coating of clay was spread. The roof was probably

1 Pallmann, Die Pfahlbauten, pp. 52, 70. Virchow, Hünengräber und Pfahlbauten, Berlin 1866, p. 28. Hochstetter, see Oesterreichische Wochenschrift, 1864, p. 1608.

2 Cf. M. Wagner, see Ausland, 1867, p 418. Lindenschmit, see Archiv fir Anthr. ii. 351.

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made of straw, twigs, or bark. We can only form conjectures as to whether the huts were round or square, how large they were, what were the internal arrangements, and other similar questions. The pictures of these villages which we find in certain books on the subject must be looked upon as truth interwoven with fiction, just like the landscapes of the coal and other primæval periods, with which popular works on geology are sometimes ornamented. In one recent book we even find as a frontispiece, a picture of a fire in a lake village, painted in bright colours, the only historical authority for this picture being the fact that some partially burnt piles and other objects have been found; this no doubt would point to the conclusion that the lake dwelling in question was destroyed by a fire which was either accidental, or caused by an enemy's hand.

We can get no trustworthy information about the history of the inhabitants, as we have no data to go upon. On the other hand, we can get a more or less clear idea of their mode of life from the different objects which have been found near their dwellings, and which have been carefully examined by antiquaries. The builders of the lake dwellings cultivated the ground and bred cattle. Archæologists have been able to ascertain, from the grains and ears preserved in a charred condition, what were the special kinds of wheat and barley which they grew. The grain was probably preserved in large earthenware jars, of which several fragments have been found. The grain, which was very

1 See Staub, Die Pfahlbauten; Lyell, Antiquity of Man; Baer, Der Vorgeschichtliche Mensch.

2 Le Hon, L'homme fossile.

possibly roasted beforehand, was probably ground between round stones, polished on one side, which were laid in pairs next to one another. Of these a great number have been found. Besides the grain, charred apples and pears have been found, also the stones of sloes, nut-shells, and beech-nuts, and the remains of raspberries and blackberries. Besides this the inhabitants of the lake dwellings could get fish and the flesh of wild and domestic animals. The remains of cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs have been found, also the bones of dogs, who appear to have been the companions of men even in these early times. Of the wild animals, the bones of the bear, the aurochs, the bison, the wolf, the wild boar, the red deer, the fallow deer, etc., have been found.' The bones and horns of animals were made into all kinds of implements, even into spear and arrow heads; all kinds of stuffs and cords were made from flax; vessels from wood and clay; hatchets, knives, hammers, and also ornaments, from stone, bronze, and iron. In all the larger collections of antiquities we find a more or less rich selection of these curious things. Modern ingenuity has no doubt taken advantage of the love of antiquities to seize upon this branch of archæology; the antiquities of the lake dwellings have been artificially imitated like other antiquities, and we cannot always be sure that what is shown as a relic of the period of lake dwellings, is not the work of a man who is still numbered among the living.

1 Pallmann, Die Pfahlbauten, p. 95.

3

2

2 See plates in the otherwise valueless work of Staub, Die Pfahlbauten, and in many other books.

In making the railway at Concise, near the lake of Neufchatel, a lake

I have just said that in consequence of the entire absence of information concerning the inhabitants of the lake dwellings, nothing certain can be known about their history. Notwithstanding this, however, many efforts have been made to fill up the gap by hypotheses. Sometimes these hypotheses are asserted with such boldness, that some of those who are not conversant with the subject might be led to believe that they were historical statements. Some writers describe as graphically as if they had been present how the first builders of lake dwellings migrated from Asia into Switzerland; how after they had lived a long time in their huts on the lakes, they were attacked by another people of Iberian race coming from the east; how the latter destroyed the lake dwellings partly by fire, and then settled down themselves on the lakes; how these Iberians had to give way to the Celts, and the Celts to the Helvetians, etc. All this is not history, it can hardly be called even a historical romance, it is simply a fancy picture which rests on much less certain and weaker foundations than did the piles of the lake dwellings.

It is not wonderful that the first news of the discovery of the lake dwellings should have surprised

gone,

dwelling of the stone age was found, in which enormous masses of stags' horns were discovered heaped up in all stages of manufacture. When the workmen, who had at first not noticed the discovery, found that antiquaries pounced upon it, like hawks on chickens, they first raised the prices, and when the implements they had discovered were nearly all they replaced them with other stags' horns. Many antiquaries were deceived in this way. Herr Troyon, the Curator of the Lausanne Museum, bought a whole collection of these articles and put them in the museum, where they remained until the fraud was detected by some other archæologists. Vogt, Vorlesungen, ii. 43.

1 Schleiden, Das Alter des Menschengeschlechts, p. 14. Troyon, see Vogt, Vorlesungen, ii. 133, 153.