io3 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



several wives. They live in the following manner : on the plants 

 every man has a hut, in which he dwells, with a trap-door closely fitted 

 in the planks, and leading down to the lake. They tie the young chil 

 dren with a cord round the foot, fearing lest they should fall into the 

 lake beneath. To their horses and beasts of burden they give fish for 

 fodder ; of which there is such an abundance, that, when a man has 

 opened his trap-door, he lets down an empty basket by a cord into the 

 lake, and, after waiting a short time, draws it up full of fish." 



And certain savage or semi-savage tribes live in the same manner, 

 even at the present day. The fishermen of Lake Prasias still inhabit 

 wooden cottages built over the water, as in the time of Herodotus. 

 In most of the large Swiss lakes these habitations have been discovered, 

 numbering over 200 at the present date. M. Troyon has endeavored 

 to make a retrospective census of those early times. The settlement 

 at Morges, which is one of the largest in the Lake of Geneva, is 1,200 

 feet long and 150 broad, giving a surface of 180,000 square feet. Al- 

 lowing the huts to have been fifteen feet in diameter, and supposing 

 that they occupied half the surface, leaving the rest for gangways, he 

 estimates the number of cabins at 311 ; and supposing again that, on 

 an average, each was inhabited by four persons, he obtains for the 

 whole a population of 1,244. Sixty-eight villages belonging to the 

 Bronze Age are supposed to have contained 42,500 persons ; while 

 for the preceding epoch, by the same process of reasoning, he es- 

 timates the population at 31,875. 



Abundant animal remains are found in these lake-dwellings, no 

 less, indeed, than 70 species, of which 10 are fishes, four reptiles, 

 26 birds, and the remainder quadrupeds. The dog, pig, horse, goat, 

 and sheep, are recognized, and at least two varieties of oxen. Re- 

 mains of the horse are extremely rare. Three varieties of wheat 

 were cultivated by the lake-dwellers, who also possessed two kinds of 

 barley, and two of millet. Of these the most ancient and most impor- 

 tant were the small six-rowed barley and small " lake-dwellers' " 

 wheat. The discovery of Egyptian wheat at Wangen and Roben- 

 hausen is particularly interesting. Oats were cultivated during the 

 Bronze Age, but are absent from all the Stone Age villages. Rye 

 also was unknown. Altogether 115 species of plants have been deter- 

 mined. It is evident that the nourishment of the dwellers in the pile- 

 works consisted of corn and wild fruits, of fish, and the flesh of wild 

 and domestic animals. Doubtless, also, milk was an important article 

 of their diet. 



Much as still remains to be made out, respecting the men of the 

 Stone period, the facts already ascertained, like a few strokes by a 

 clever draughtsman, supply us with the elements of an outline sketch. 

 Carrying our imagination back into the past, we see before us, on the 

 low shores of the Danish Archipelago, a race of small men, with heavy, 

 overhanging brows, round heads, and faces probably much like those 



