30 OEiaiNAL ARTICLES. 



getter, 68 villages, belonging to tlie Bronze xlge, have been discovered 

 in Western Switzei'land, and by the same process of reasoning tliey 

 may be supposed to have contained 42,500 persons ; while for the 

 preceding epoch, the population may, in the same manner, be esti- 

 mated at 31,875. 



Por a moment it may surprise us that a people so uncivilised 

 should have constructed their dwellings with immense labour on the 

 water, when it would have been so much more easy to have built 

 them on dry land. The first settlers in Switzerland, however, had to 

 contend with the Boar, the "Wolf, the Bear, and the TJrus ; and sub- 

 sequently, when the population increased, and disputes arose, the lake 

 habitations, no doubt, acted as a fortification, and protected man 

 from man, as they had before preserved him from wild beasts. 



Switzerland is not, by any means, the only country in which lake 

 dwellings have been used as fortresses. In Ireland, a number of 

 more or less artificial islands, called " Crannoges,"* are known his- 

 torically, to have been used as strongholds by the petty chiefs. They 

 are composed of earth and stones, strengthened by numerous piles, 

 and have supplied the Irish Archaeologists with numerous weapons 

 and bones. From the Crannoge at Dunshauglin, indeed, more 

 than 150 cart-loads of bones were obtained, and were used as manure ! 

 These lake dwellings of Ireland, however, come down to a much later 

 period than those of Switzerland, and are frequently mentioned in 

 early history. Thus, according to Shirley, " One Thomas Phelliplace, 

 " in his answer to an inquiry from the Government, as to what castles 

 " or forts O'Neil hath, and of what strength they be, states (May 18, 

 " 1567) : ' For castles, I think it be not unknown unto your honors, 

 " he trusteth no point thereunto for his safety, as appeareth by the 

 *' raising of the strongest castles of all his countreys, and that fortifi- 

 " cation that he only dependeth upon is in sartin ffresliwater loghes 

 " in his country, which from the sea there come neither ship nor 

 " boat to approach them : it is thought that there in the said forti- 

 " fied islands lyeth all his plate, which is much, and money, prisoners 

 " and gages : which islands, hath in wars to fore been attempted, and 

 " now of late again by the Lord Deputy there. Sir Harry Sydney, 

 " which for want of means for safe conducts upon the water it hath 

 " not prevailed.' " 



Again, the map of the escheated territories, made for the Govern- 

 ment, A.D. 1591, by Francis Jobson, or the " Piatt of the County 

 of Monaghan," preserved in the State Paper Oifice, contains rough 

 sketches of the dwellings of the petty chiefs of Monaghan, which 

 "are in all cases surrounded by water."t In the "Aiuials of 

 the Four Masters," and other records of early Irish history, we meet 

 with numerous instances in which the Crannoges are mentioned, and 

 some in which their position has not preserved them from robbery and 



* See Wilde's Catalogue, V. i. p. 220. 

 t Ibid. p. 23L 



