190 LAKE-DWELLINGS OF DIFFERENT PERIODS. 



aiguilles," which finally also disappear, and leave only a black 

 disk at the surface of the mud. This, however, is the case 

 principally in the Lake villages of the Stone Age. 



The more complete destruction of the piles belonging to the 

 earlier period depends not only on their greater age, but on 

 their occurrence in shallower water. The action of the waves 

 being greatest near the surface, and diminishing gradually 

 downwards, not only are those piles which occupy the deeper 

 parts least liable to destruction, but in each the erosion takes 

 place gradually from above, so that the upper end of the piles 

 is often more regularly pointed even than the lower. Lying 

 among them are fragments of bone, horn, pottery, and some- 

 times objects of bronze. Most of these are embedded in the 

 mud or hidden under the stones, but others lie on the bottom 

 yet uninjured ; so that when, for the first time, I saw them 

 through the transparent water, a momentary feeling of doubt 

 as to their age rose in my mind. So fresh are they and so 

 unaltered, they look as if they were only things of yesterday, 

 and it seems hard to believe that they can have remained 

 there for centuries. The explanation of the difficulty is, how- 

 ever, to be found in the fact that the action of the most violent 

 storms is perceptible only to a small depth. Except, therefore, 

 near the mouths of rivers, or where there is much vegetation, 

 which in the large lakes is rarely the case, the deposition of 

 mud at depths greater than four feet is an extremely slow 

 process, and objects which fall to the bottom in such situations 

 will neither be covered over nor carried away. " J'ai peche," 

 says M. Troy on, " sur 1' emplacement en face du Moulin de 

 Bevaix, les fragments d'un grand vase qui gisaient a pen de 

 distance les uns des autres, et que j'ai pu reunir de maniere a 

 les remontre completement. A la Tongue, pres d'Hermance, 

 j'ai trouve les deux fragments d'un anneau support, distants 

 de quelques pieds, qui, en les rapprochant ne laissent aucun 

 interstice." The upper parts of the objects also, which are 



