374 LACUSTRIAN SETTLEMENTS. 



who affirms that these objects of copper are freq[ueut in the countries of the 

 lower Danube. 



Lacustrian settlements of the Untersee, that is, of the portion of the Lake of 

 Cojistance to the east of the city of Constance. — For several years an extensive 

 pile-work of the age of stone, situated near the village of Wangen, at one league 

 and a half from Stein, had been used, Avith a view to the trade in antitj^uities, 

 by one Loehle, under the direction of Dr. Keller, who has spoken of this locality 

 in previous reports, liecently M. K. Dehoti', employed in the customs of the 

 grand duchy of Baden, has explored the whole Baden part of the Untersee, 

 and his account, occupying nine pages, is given with the skill of a master, and 

 the precision of a mathematician. Many of the observations already made at 

 Waugen are here reproduced, but several interesting results of a general nature 

 flow from them. In the lirst place, there is the absence, in all this region, of 

 pile-works belonging to the age of bronze, all those explored up to this time 

 having furnished, besides pottery, bone, buck-horn, &c., only stone, vrithout 

 any trace of metal, which does not import, however, that none will ever be 

 found. Another curious remark is, that silex of foreign production occurs, un- 

 shaped and in abundance, at certain localities, denoting a place of fabrication, 

 while elsewhere it is wholly wanting, as if the division of labor had existed, 

 not only among individuals of the same settlement, but among the lacustrian 

 villages, to some of which the preparation of instruments of silex, for the com- 

 mon supply, had been specially assigned. It is also a striking circumstance 

 that in these settlements without metals are not unfrequently found hatchets 

 of serpentine of excellent form, so ingeniously and even ornamentally wrought 

 that we might be inclined to refer them to a later age, characterized by greater 

 advances in art, and by the employment of bronze. On the other hand, such 

 handles of buck-horn for the stone wedge as are found at Meileu, at Moossedorf, 

 and elsewhere, are almost entirely Avanting in the Untersee. Here the usual 

 form of handle for the stone wedge was the branch, bent and notched with a 

 ligature to retain the wedge in the notch. Two plates, with twenty-seven fig- 

 ures, accompany the memoir of M. Dchofif, comprising, among others, the plan, 

 with sections, of the pile-work near Alleusbach, the place of each pile being 

 indicated, which gives, for the first time, a complete and correct idea of the 

 subject. In concluding, M. DehofF furnishes also some information respecting 

 the prolongation, towards the northwest, of the Lake of Constance, called 

 Ueberlingersee, which presents, in respect to lacustrian settlements, the same 

 features with the Untersee. 



The fascine-work of Niedcr- Wyl, near Frauerfeld, canton of Thurgau. — Dr. 

 Keller, while he gives the French term fascinage, calls it in German pack- 

 werkbau, corresponding somewhat to that which is known in Ireland under 

 the name of crannoge. A small lake, or, more properly, a natural pond, filled 

 with peat, was subjected to exploration. At one point the workmen reached, 

 at a depth of from two to three feet, under the surface of the peat-moss, a col- 

 lection of wood and solid matter, forming a sort of isle of about 20,000 square 

 feet, around which there was a depth of eight or ten feet of the peat before at- 

 taining the ancient bed of the lake. This isle was ascertained to be an artificial 

 construction, which had served as a foundation for habitations. To the selected 

 point in the lake it seems that logs and boughs were brought, bound together 

 m rafts, and loaded with sand to make them sink, piles being driven around to 

 mark the limits of the construction, and the operation repeated till it rose above 

 the surface of the water. A floor of logs, in close juxtaposition, was then laid 

 upon sills regularly arranged, and tliis floor was covered with a layer of com- 

 pacted clay, upon which the dwellings were erected. These dwellings were 

 rectangular, being, on an average, twenty feet long and twelve wide. The 

 walls, parts of which were still in place, were formed of logs split into rough 

 boards, confined between stakes or posts planted vertically at suitable inter- 



