48 OEIGIKAL AETICLES. 



The swords have larger handles and are more richly ornamented ; the 

 knives have straight edges ; the sickles are larger ; the pottery is 

 more skilfully made and is ornamented with various colours ; the 

 personal ornaments are also more varied, and glass for the first time 

 makes its appearance. 



Col. Schwab has found at the Steinberg more than twenty cres- 

 cents, made of earthenware, and with the convex side flattened, to 

 serve as a foot. They are compressed at the sides, sometimes plain, 

 sometimes ornamented, from eight to twelve inches from one horn to 

 the other, and from six to eight inches in height. They are con- 

 sidered by Dr. Keller to be religious emblems, and are taken as evi- 

 dence of moon- worship. He refers to Pliny, xvi. 95 ; " Est autem id 

 " (viscum) rarum admodum iuventu et repertum magna religione peti- 

 " tur et ante omnia sexta luna, quae principia mensum annorumque his 

 " facit, et sseculi post tricesimum annum, quia jam virium abunde 

 " habeat nee sit sui dimidia ; omnia sanantem appelaides suo vocabulo.^' 

 Tliis passage he translates as follows : " The misletoe is however very 

 rare, but when it is found it is gathered with great religious ceremony, 

 especially on the sixth day of the moon, at which epoch begin their 

 months, years, and divisions of thirty years, because it has then suffi- 

 cient force, and yet is not in the middle of its course ; calling it Heal- 

 all in their language." This name has generally been referred to 

 the misletoe. (See The Celt, Eoman and Saxon, p. 48.) But the S^-iss 

 archaeologists consider that this is a mistake, and that it propei'ly 

 refers to the moon. 



A field of battle at Tiefenau, near Berne, is remarkable for the 

 great number of iron weapons and implements which have been found 

 on it. Pieces of chariots, about a hundred swords, pieces of coat of 

 mail, lance heads, rings, fibulse, ornaments, utensils, pieces of pottery 

 and of glass, accompanied by more than thirty pieces of Gaulish and 

 Massaliote money anterior to our era, enable us to refer this battle- 

 field to the Eoman era. 



After this period we find no more evidences of Lake habitations 

 on a large scale. Here and there indeed a few fishermen may have 

 lingered on the half-destroyed platforms, but the wants and habits of 

 the people had changed, and the age of Pileworks was at an end. 



We have, however, traced them through the Stone and Bronze 

 dowai to the beginning of the Iron period. We have seen evidences 

 of a gradual progress in civilization, and improvement in tlie arts, an 

 increase in the domestic animals, and proofs at last of the existence of 

 an extended commerce. We found the country inhabited only by 

 rude savages and we leave it the seat of a powerful nation. Changes 

 so important as these are not effected in a day ; the progress of the 

 human mind is but slow ; and the gradual additions to human know- 

 ledge and power, like the rings in trees, enable us to form some idea 

 how distant must be the date of their commencement. So varied 

 however are the conditions of the human mind, so much are all na- 

 tions affected by the influence of others, that when we attempt to 



