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Our author next proceeds to consider the "Swiss Lake Dwellings," built on piles, near the shores of Lake Geneva and other small neighboring lakes. There is nothing in the presence or construction of these rude dwellings to indicate any very remote antiquity, for Herodotus informs us that the Pæonians built just such lake dwellings, to escape the attacks of Xerxes. But our author finds in some of them "implements of stone, horn and bone, but none of metal," and these he refers to the stone period of the world. In others he finds some tools and weapons of bronze, and these he attributes to the "bronze period," at which time arts had begun to arise among men. He makes a nice point of the fact, that the huts of the bronze period were situated more westerly, showing the westward march of civilization, in this little confined lake district. He states, that "the tools, ornaments and pottery of the bronze period, in Switzerland, bear a close resemblance to those of the corresponding age in Denmark, attesting the wide spread of a uniform civilization over central Europe, at that era ;"-a very sweeping generalization, based on forty rude metal hatchets, dredged up in Lake Geneva. In some few of these aquatic stations, as well as in other places on land, he finds a mixture of bronze and iron implements, and works of art, "including coins, and metals of bronze and silver, struck at Marseilles, and of Greek manufacture, belonging to the first and pre-Roman division of the age of iron."

He speculates largely in regard to numerous fragments of bones of wild and domestic animals, found in or near the foundations of these dwellings, and he conjectures, as in the case of those found in Danish refuse heaps, that "the greater number, if not all these animals, served for food." They amount to fifty-four species; and he ingeniously distributes them, with the help of Rutimeyer, among these three assumed and remote ages of man; they are all, however, animals now living in Europe, except the Bos primigenius, which existed in the time of Cæsar. We notice among those allotted to the bronze period, the ox, sheep, goat, hog, a large hunting dog, "and with it a small horse, of which genus very few traces have been detected in the earlier settlements,-a single tooth, for

example, at Wangen, and only one or two bones at two or three other places." He thinks, that in "the earliest age of stone, when the habits of the hunter state predominated over those of the pastoral, venison or the flesh of the stag and roe was more eaten than the flesh of the domestic cattle and sheep." But the great mass of animals constructed out of these disjecta membra, were common to all those far distant epochs of man's existence, within the narrow limits of these Swiss lakes, and were precisely the same animals which now inhabit the country. In addition to the common fishes, wild fowl and reptiles, he enumerates all the present wild mammalia, such as "the bear, the badger, the common marten, the polecat, the ermine, the weasel, the otter wolf, fox, wild cat, hedgehog, squirrel, field mouse, &c.," the greater part or all of which he tells us served for food. Not a very inviting bill of fare, certainly. Perhaps, however, these unsavory animals were killed for their skins; the assumption that they were used for food, is entirely gratuitous.

While the bones of the fox occur every where in great abundance, he tells us that only "a single fragment of the bone of a hare has been found at Moosseedorf." He assumes, backed by the authority of Rutimeyer, that this fact proves a universal preference of fox to hare, on the part of the lake-dwellers of the stone period, and "establishes a singular contrast between their tastes and ours." This is a very astonishing deduction from a single fact, and is based, also, on a gratuitous assumption. This solitary fragment of bone might be good evidence that hares were scarce where foxes were plenty; but who, except a savant, would ever have dreamed that this solitary bone could be proof of a universal preference of foxmeat to hare, and establish such a singular contrast of tastes between the gourmands of the Swiss stone period and the British age of iron? of iron? To an unsophisticated mind, such generalizations would seem to manifest more imagination than com

mon sense.

He also informs us, that, "amidst all this profusion of animal remains" which served for food to men belonging to different ages of the world, during three long chronological ages,

only one solitary human skull is found, to represent the three ages of stone, bronze, and iron.

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After careful examination of this solitary specimen, Professor His observes, that "it exhibits, instead of the small, rounded form, proper to the Danish peat mosses, a type much more like that now prevailing in Switzerland, which is intermediate between the long-headed and short-headed form.' This is, doubtless, a very correct and cautious observation of Prof. His; and the plain, common-sense conclusion is, that it belonged to the present Swiss race, since it has their prevailing characteristics. But this skull is authoritatively pronounced to be "of the early stone period," simply because it was dredged up in that part of the Lake of Zurich which is assumed to have been the theater of the stone period. Accordingly, the inference which our author draws from this opinion of Prof. His, is the following:-"So far, therefore, as we can draw safe conclusions from a single specimen, there has been no marked change of race in the human population of Switzerland, during the periods above considered."

Here we have another brilliant generalization of an assumption, based moreover on the perversion of a cautious opinion. A solitary skull, which is assumed to belong to the early stone age of Switzerland,—though differing from another solitary skull, which was made the type of the same age, “of a uniform civilization," in Denmark,-is pronounced by Prof. His to be similar to those of the present Swiss race. Thereupon, our author makes this solitary skull typical, also, of the other two ages, and comes gravely to the conclusion, (with a salvo,) that there has been no marked change in the human population of Switzerland, during the ages of stone, bronze, and iron! This, certainly, is generalizing with a vengeance; we need not the cautionary salvo of the author, to guard us against the fallacy of such unscientific speculations.

On the strength of such assumptions, we are called upon to believe that the present Swiss population have come down, with little change of race, from the primeval savage of the stone period;—that their rude fox-eating forefathers continued to inhabit a little lake district, until they had there instituted

agriculture and metallurgic arts, during two successive ages of civilization, necessarily embracing a period of time sufficiently long to fill all Switzerland with an overflowing population, and convert it into a populous cemetery of the dead;-that, although numerous animal remains and cereals used for food, are said to manifest the habits and tastes of each age, yet they left behind them only the remnants of a few wooden huts, some metal tools, and a solitary skull, to attest the existence of vast multitudes, their peculiarities of race, and their gradual progress towards civilization, through long successive ages of stone, bronze, and iron!

Assuredly, scientific men who have hobbies to ride, go out of their way to invent grave absurdities. The only rational explanation of the facts, which does not do violence to common sense, is, that a few rude savages had built temporary hunting lodges in the water, for fishing purposes, and probably, also, to protect themselves from abounding wild beasts,— and that the pioneers who preceded the Roman invasion of Helvetia, introduced the few metal utensils, which form the sole foundation for these assumed ages of stone, bronze, and iron.

But our author brings geological evidence to prove the existence of his three chronological ages, in this particular locality, and estimates, upon the authority of M. Morlot, their duration in years. The case which he cites,-though imperfect in its details, is one of the strongest in the book. We will, therefore, quote it entire, for the purpose of cross-examining the evidence which is adduced in support of its conclusions. He says:

"The attempts of the Swiss geologists and archæologists to estimate definitely in years the antiquity of the bronze and stone periods, although as yet confessedly imperfect, deserve notice, and appear to me to be full of promise. The most elaborate calculation is that made by M. Morlot, respecting the delta of the Tinière, a torrent which flows into the Lake of Geneva, near Villeneuve. This small delta, to which the stream is annually making additions, is composed of gravel and sand. Its shape is that of a flattened cone, and its internal structure has of late been laid open to view, in a railway cutting one thousand feet long and thirty-two feet deep. The regularity of its structure throughout implies that it has been formed very gradually, and

by the uniform action of the same causes. Three layers of vegetable soil, each of which must at one time have formed the surface of the cone, have been cut through at different depths. The first of these was traced over a surface of 15,000 square feet, having an average thickness of five inches, and being about four feet below the present surface of the cone. This upper layer belonged to the Roman period, and contained Roman tiles and a coin. The second layer followed over a surface of 25,000 square feet, was six inches thick, and lay at a depth of ten feet. In it were found fragments of pottery unvarnished, and a pair of tweezers in bronze, indicating the bronze epoch. The third layer, followed for 35,000 square feet, was six or seven inches thick, and nineteen feet deep. In it were fragments of rude pottery, pieces of charcoal, broken bones, and a human skeleton having a small, round and very thick skull. M. Morlot, assuming the Roman period to represent an antiquity of from sixteen to eighteen centuries, assigns to the bronze age a date of between 3,000 and 4,000 years, and to the oldest layer, that of the stone period, an age of from 5,000 to 7,000 years.”—p. 28.

We have examined the Memoir of M. Morlot, and find the "elaborate calculation," referred to above, to be merely an approximative conjecture, based on the growth of the cone in proportion to the volume of its alluvium, and varying from 5,000 to 11,000 years. The above figures are, therefore, to be considered as guesses. We also find that M. Morlot, after diligent search in the bed of the so-called stone period, "has not had the good fortune to discover in it any stone hatchet or other antiquity of that sort." The animal bones found in this bed belong to "the ox, goat, sheep, pig and dog, all domestic,” and such as are assigned to the bronze and iron age. The skull, also, found in this lowest bed, "was very round and small, and remarkably thick, showing a strongly-marked Mongolian type,” an entirely different type from that assigned by Lyell to the Swiss stone period.

According to M. Morlot, the torrent of the Tinière, where it flows into the Lake of Geneva, like other Alpine torrents issuing from ravines or small lateral valleys, forms a rounded, "fan-like" deposit or flattened cone at its mouth. This cone has an inclination of four degrees, corresponding to the bed of the torrent; its radius is 900 Swiss feet, and its transverse diameter is 1,000 feet at its central part, where the railway cuts through it at right angles, or perpendicularly to its axis. The greatest height of this conical mound is at the central

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