ARCHiEOLOGY. 351 



for projectiles, as is shown by the pebbles with sharp corners lying- 

 heaped together in the mud at the side of the piles; too small to be 

 used in the fabrication of implements, they could have been intended 

 for no other purpose but that of defence. Not content with these 

 arms, the lacustrians, skilled already in the art of war, had contrived 

 incendiary balls and bullets formed of charcoal kneaded with clay. 

 These instruments of destruction, which were generally pierced with 

 a hole, that they might be l)etter thrown, could only have served 

 for attack; they were ignited, and then tossed on the roofs of the 

 hostile huts. If some projection detained them, they burned insid- 

 iously on the dried thatch, the fire spread by degrees, and soon the 

 top of the structure Avas wrapt in flames. It Avas thus that the Nervii 

 fired the camp of Caesar. From the first days of his history man has 

 employed his ingenuity in burning and destroying. 



Among the instruments of labor manufactured by the lacustrian 

 people of the age of stone may be cited blades of silex, edged or 

 toothed, which served as knives and saws, hammers, anvils, awls of 

 bone or of deer's horn, paring-knives, and needles, which were des- 

 tined, no doubt, for cutting or sewing leather or skins. The frag- 

 ments of pottery which occur are formed of a coarse clay, the paste 

 of which is usually intermingled with small grains of quartz. These 

 vessels betray the infancy of the art, and very seldom present traces 

 of ornamen,tation. Some, of quite a fine paste, have a smooth surface, 

 and are colored black by means of graphite. At Wangen, on the 

 borders of the Lake of Constance, at Robenhausen, in the Lake of 

 PfaefBkon, mats of hemp and of flax, and even real cloth, have been 

 discovered, as well as small baskets in all respects like those of an- 

 cient 'Egyptian tombs. The lacustrians manufactured likewise cords 

 and cables from textile fibres and the bark of various trees. Vain, 

 like all savages, they bestowed great pains on their corporeal beauty, 

 and sought to enhance it by numerous artifices; they tucked up their 

 Iiair with pins of bone, decorated their fingers with rings and their 

 wrists with heavy bracelets, and loaded their shoulders with collars 

 formed of balls of deer's horn, mingled with bits of stone; on their 

 breasts they wore the teeth of bears, doubtless to endue them with 

 the force of the wild beast and preserve them from mischances. The 

 large disks of stone found at the bottom of their lakes served as quoits 

 to amuse them after the arduous labor of the day. The pierced nuts 

 now scattered in the mud were, no doubt, toys with which, as rattles, 

 the mothers amused their little nurslings. 



Other discoveries have been made which show that agriculture was 

 somewhat advanced among the lacustrian tribes of this first period, 

 and we should consequently assign them a much more elevated rank 

 than was originally supposed. Doubtless hunting and fishing sup- 

 plied the greater part of their food, as is indicated by the very situ- 

 ation of their homes in the midst of the waters, and by the bones, 

 partly devoured, of the urus, the bison, the deer, the elk, the roe, 

 the chamois, and birds of the woods, which are found in the beds of 

 turf or mud of their ancient habitations. Wild fruits also furnished 

 a portion of their aliment, as there have been found amongst the 



