360 AECH^OLOGY. 



now to ascend the course of time and to reconstruct, in its general 

 features, the history of the Helvetians up to about the fourth or fifth 

 century of the ancient era; but if the chain of ages is reunited for 

 this Gallic tribe, it is not so for the lacustrian colonies, whom the 

 Helvetians had exterminated or reduced to slavery. 



What were these aborigines whom archeology has, as it were, 

 resuscitated by an examination of the remains found in the mud of 

 the lakes? Were they of Finnish, Sicilian, Iberian, or Pelasgic ori- 

 gin? Should we seek their native country on the table-land of Iran, 

 or on the soil of western Europe itself? One thing only seems cer- 

 tain, that they were men of small size, more remarkable for their 

 agility than their force. Their narrow bracelets could only encircle 

 delicate arms; their swords, with short handles, could not have been 

 grasped by the large hands of the Gauls and required a certain skill 

 in fencing; in viewing them one might say that they had been wielded 

 by agile warriors like our basque soldiers. Nothing, however, as 

 yet, authorizes the learned to give a definite answer. The form of 

 the skull of the lacustrians would be a datum of great importance in 

 the question, but the skulls and other bones found on the lacustrian 

 sites and in the tombs of the age of stone are rare and offer only 

 remains which it is difficult to study. By a singular contrast, we 

 know the origin, the Avars, the migrations, and even the royal gene- 

 alogies of many ancient people whose manners are unknown to us; 

 and here we have tribes who reveal to us their intimate life, their 

 domestic habits, and who make a mystery of their name. Their pro- 

 ductions are collected in our museums, we have been able even to 

 draw up their statistics in an approximative manner, but they pass 

 before us in history like apparitions, and we know not how to con- 

 nect them with any of the races which precede or which follow 

 them. Let us hope that in the near future the methodic exploration 

 of the antiquities of Europe, and the comparison of all the testimo- 

 nies furnished by the still buried remains, will enable science to class 

 the lacustrians, to follow their migrations, and mark their halting 

 places. Already have recent discoveries established, in a positive 

 manner, that they also inhabited the lakes of Savoy and upper Italy. 

 We shall, doubtless, succeed in ascertaining what was the extent of 

 their domains at different ante-historic epochs, and, what is even 

 more important, their intimate life; their moral civilization will be 

 elucidated by a thorough study of the tribes which have sustained a 

 development under parallel conditions in different points of the globe, 

 and which still exist in an age of stone and of lacustrian habitations. 

 It is then that we may attempt to write the comparative history of 

 adolescent races — one of the most interesting chapters of the great 

 ""^ook of man. 



While awaiting the results of systematically organized researches 

 on all the continents, we should highly congratulate the scientific 

 explorers of the lakes of Switzerland on having recovered these 

 humble remains, so long hidden under the waters. These relics also 

 speak a language not less eloquent than that of the great monuments 

 left by the Roman conquerors. The nations whose life is recounted 



