LUBBOCK OX THE A^'CLEaTT T.^KT. HABITATIONS OF S-WTTZEELANT). 29 



undervalue ^vliat M. Morlot calls the Practical Utility of Geology, 

 nor that I am less sanguine as to the fature advantages of Arcliseology. 

 Science, however, is like virtue, its o^vn reward, and the improvement 

 of the mind must be regarded as the highest object of study. How- 

 ever this may be, M. Morlot is, to use his own metaphor, labouring 

 earnestly in the vineyard, and is improving the soil, though, as in the 

 old fable, it may be in the false hopes of finding a concealed treasure. 

 The Swiss Archaeologists have, indeed, made the most of a golden op- 

 portunity. Not only in Lake Zurich, but also in Lakes Constance, 

 G-eneva, Xeufehatel,'^ Bieime, Morat, Sempach, in fact in most of the 

 large Swiss lakes, as well as in several of the smaller ones (Likwyl, 

 Pfaffikon, Moosseedorf, Luissel), similar lake-habitations have been 

 discovered. In the larger lakes, indeed, not one, but many of these 

 settlements existed ; thus, M. Keller mentions, in Lake Bienue, 

 eleven; in Lake Xeufchatel, twenty-six; in the Lake of Greneva, 

 twenty-four ; in that of Constance, sixteen ; and many more, doubt- 

 less, remain to be discovered. 



Tlie dwellings of the Grauls are described as having been circular 

 huts, built of wood and lined with mud. The huts of the Pileworks 

 were probably of a similar nature. This supposition is not a mere 

 hypothesis, but is confirmed by the preservation of pieces of the clay 

 used for the lining. Their preservation is evidently due to the building 

 having been destroyed by fibre, which has hardened the clay and 

 enabled it to resist the dissolving action of the water. These frag- 

 ments bear, on one side, the marks of interlaced branches, while on 

 the other, which apparently formed the iiuier wall of the cabin, they 

 are qvdte smooth. Some of those which have been found at Wangen 

 are so large and so regular that the Swiss Archa?ologists feel 

 justified in concluding that the cabins were circular, and from ten 

 to fifteen feet in diameter. Though, therefore, the architecture of 

 this period was very simple, still the weight to be sustained on the 

 wooden platforms must have been considerable, and their construc- 

 tion, which must have required no small labotir,* indicates a con- 

 siderable popvdation. It would, indeed, be most interesting if we 

 coidd construct a retrospective census for these eai'ly periods, and 

 M. Troyon has made an attempt to do so, though the results must, 

 naturally, be somewhat vague. The settlement at Merges, which is 

 one of the larirest in the Lake of Geneva, is 1200 feet long and 150 

 broad, which would give a suiface of 180,000 square feet. Taking 

 the cabins as being 15 feet in diameter, and supposing that they 

 occupied half the siuiace, leaving the rest for gangways, we may esti- 

 mate the number of cabins at 311, and if we suppose that, on an 

 average, each was inhabited by four persons, we shall have, for the 

 whole, a population of 1244. Starting from the same data, we should 

 obtain for the Lake of Neufchatel, a population of about 5000. Alto- 



* '"Increasing density of population is equivalent to increasing facility of produc- 

 tion." Bastiat, Hannonies of Political (Economy, p. 12. 



