ARCHEOLOGY. 349 



piles we can still distinguish remains of the hollowed trunks of trees 

 which served for canoes, and a range of posts indicates the pristine 

 existence of a bridge which led from the threshold of the lacustrian 

 dwelling to the neighboring shore. Not only are we enabled to de- 

 termine from the number of piles what were the dimensions of the 

 largest aquatic cities, composed generally of two or three hundred 

 cabins ; we can even measure in some cases the diameter of the huts 

 constructed so many ages ago. The fragments of the coat of clay 

 which lined them on the inside show on their convex face the marks 

 of the interlaced boughs of the wall, while their concave side is 

 rounded into the arc of a circle ; by calculating the radius of this 

 arc we find that the size of the habitations varied from three to five 

 metres, (10 to 16 or 17 feet,) dimensions quite sufficient for a family 

 which seeks in its d\^elling a simple shelter. 



Athwart an interval of thirty or forty centuries we can conceive 

 how picturesque an effect must have been produced by this agglom- 

 eration of small huts closely compacted together in the midst of the 

 waters. The shore was uninhabited ; a few domestic animals alone 

 fed in the grassy clearings ; great trees spread their masses of ver- 

 dure over all the slopes; a deep silence brooded in the forest. Upon 

 the waters, on the contrary, all was movement and clamor; the smoke 

 curled above the roofs; the populace bustled upon the platforms ; the 

 canoes passed and repassed from one group of dwellings to another, 

 and from the village to the shore; in the distance floated the boats 

 which served for fishing or for war. The water seemed then the 

 real domain of man. 



From the first of their discoveries the Swiss archaeologists decided 

 that the lacustrian habitations did not all date from one and the same 

 epoch. The study of the objects found at the bottom of the lakes 

 has led them to divide the first cycle of our history" into three ages : 

 the age of stone, of bronze and of iron. The scientific inquirers of 

 Scandinavia had already established these three successive periods in 

 reference to their own country ; but these ages were not cotempor- 

 aneous in the two countries. Civilization was then propagated with 

 the utmost slowness, and centuries passed away before each progres- 

 sion in human industry could penetrate from the south of Europe into 

 the cold regions of the north. The habits of the people were only 

 changed by force of prolonged wars or through distant migrations. 



It is in German Switzerland chiefly that the traces of settlements 

 belonging to the age of stone have been recognized. Western Swit- 

 zerland likewise possessed important lacustrian cities, among others 

 that of Concise, near the southern extremity of Lake Neuchatel, but 

 the Lakes of Zurich and of Constance appear to have been the most 

 active centres of population. It was then that the pile-work of Ober- 

 meilen was erected, the discovery of which was the starting point of 

 all that has been since effected. Thanks to the relics obtained at 

 that point, and on the shores of the Lakes of Constance, of Pfaeffikon, 

 of Sempach, of Wauwyl, of Mooseedorf, we can at this day sketch in 

 broad lines the manner of life of the lacustrian populations, and give 

 some general but certain indications with regard to their history. 



