ARCHAEOLOGY. 361 



by all the voices of history are not the only ones Avhich have exer- 

 cised a great and durable influence on their successors; the savage 

 or barbarous tribes forgotten by the fugitive memory of their de- 

 scendants have also accomplished their work. Even yesterday, before 

 the piles had been observed through the transparent water of the 

 lakes, we knew nothing of that nation which, during perhaps twenty 

 centuries, had prepared our soil for the civilization which it this day 

 sustains. It is that which contended with the ferocious beasts, 

 cleared the forests, cultivated the earth; it is that which performed 

 the great work of first colonization attributed by the Greeks to their 

 demi-gods. The heroes of Gaul do not bear, like those of Greece, 

 the glorious names of Hercules and Theseus; but, though fallen into 

 oblivion, they have not forfeited their right to our grateful recogni- 

 tion. The living generations are joint heirs with those which have 

 long since disappeared, and in the estimate of our vaunted modern 

 civilization a large share should undoubtedly revert to the tribes 

 without a name of the ages of stone and of bronze. 



ELISEE RECLUS. 



THE riUNAOF MIDDLE EUROPE DURmG THE STOKE AGE. 



By dr. L. RUTIMEYER: Basel, 1861. 



[Condensed from the German.] 



To the ante -historical ei'as, which cannot be measured by solar 

 years, the names of stone and bronze age are applied. By these 

 expressions periods are indicated in which certain nations made 

 their implements — whether for domestic, hunting, or agricultural 

 use — of stone, or, later, of copper or some alloy of this metal, but 

 never of iron. Though in the case of some of the ancient nations 

 the time when they changed their implements of stone for those of 

 bronze can be determined chronologically, in general, we can only 

 say that one period succeeded another, as the geologist speaks of 

 older and newer strata, without being able, however, to state any 

 definite periods of time. 



Among the most remarkable relics of the stone age are the sup- 

 posed Celtic implements of flint which have been discovered in the 

 tertiary debris of Amiens and Abbeville. Of later date are the 

 relics of the lacustrine remains in Switzerland. They are found 

 either under the surface of the waters of the Helvetian lakes, or, 

 partly overgrown with turf, upon the ancient beds of inland lakes. 

 The primitive people built their dwellings upon palisades either 

 partly or entirely in the water; and hence the name sometimes 

 given of "palisade buildings." Mingled with the remains of these 

 buildings, historical records are found, in the form of implements of 



