OF THE LAKE OF NEUCHATEL. 355 



■badger, the martin, the ermine, the otter, the poh.^cat, the wolf, the fox, the dog. 

 the cat, the hedgehog, the beaver, the squirrel, the horse, the hog, the wild boar, 

 (he elk, the stag, the roe, the fallow deer, the sheep, the bison, the urus, the 

 goat, and a quantity of remains of the domestic ox. These, it will be seen, 

 embrace for the most part the same animals which, where the chase has not 

 destroyed them, still inhabit the forests of Europe. Among the cows M. Ruti- 

 meyer distinguishes two varieties, a very large and a small one, which is the 

 stock of the domestic animal. The same author distinguishes, besides the 

 ■■domestic hog and the wild boar, a third variety, the hog of the fens {Sus jyaiustris,) 

 whose remains are especially found in great abundance in the palafittes of the 

 age of stone in east Switzerland. This species, which was smaller than the 

 two preceding, has shared the fate of the urus, (which should, not be con- 

 founded with the bison of Lithuania,) having been lost in the course of ages. It 

 is not probable that this animal was domesticated, nor, consequently, that it is. 

 the stock of our present hog, which descends rather from the wild boar. 



The stations of stone in our lake have not yet furnished a human skeleton. 

 We possess, in Switzerland, but a single skull of that epoch, derived from the 

 station of Meilen on the lake of Zurich, and this, unfortunately, is not complete. 

 It results, however, from the researches of MM. llutimeyer and Ilis,* that the 

 skull in question occupies in some sort a mean between the long and short heads, 

 (the ratio of breadth to length being as 83 to 100,) approximating in this re- 

 spect to the type most common in Switzerland. It does not differ sensibly 

 from the skulls of the station of bronze of Auvernier, of which notice will be- 

 taken further on ; and being, like one of the latter, the skull of an infant, there is 

 room to suppose that the characteristic traits of the race had. not yet acquired, 

 their definitive expression. 



It is diiScult to form an idea of the state of culture of tlie tribes of the age 

 of stone. To judge of them only by their arms and utensils, they could 

 scarcely have been more advanced than the savages of the isles of Sunda or of 

 the Pacific ocean, since only silex and bone were at their disposal ; but it can- 

 not be denied, on the other hand, that they had put these materials to singular 

 profit. Such, at least, is the impression derived from an examination of the col- 

 lections which have been made from Lake Neuchatel ; as, for example, that of 

 the museum and of M. Schwab, but above all, that of Dr. Clement at St. Aubiu. 

 The distinction between arms and utensils was probably not very rigid, and it 

 is possible, nay, probable, that some utensil which served to cultivate the soil 

 or cut the posts for a cabiti, were, on occasion, employed also as an ofi^eusive 

 and defensive weapon, as hatchets, hammers, &c. 



The arms properly so called are : lances of silex, which are sometimes sev- 

 eral decimetres in length. Most of them are elaborated with extraordinary 

 care, Avhich evinces great dexterity in the ai't of cutting stone ; all present on' 

 one side a slightly curved surface, which is the natural fracture as detached 

 from the nucleus, and on the other a median longitudinal carina (Fig. 2 ;) some 

 have a sort of tongue or neck (Fig. 3) which probably penetrated into the staff. 

 In some rare cases an exceptional finish was bestowed on the lance by means 

 of small transverse fractures of singular regularity. Of this Fig. 2a is a striking 

 example. 



The arrows are triangular, (Fig. 4,) frequently provided with barbs, which 

 rendered them more formidable. Traces are sometimes obsei'ved of the cem'^nt 

 which united them to the stock. There were also points of arrows of bone, 



* Crania Helvetica, p. 35. Some fragments of a skull have just been discovered in the 

 midst of a quantity of animal remains, at the station of Greng, on Lake Morat ; they are in 

 the possession of Count G. de Portales. 



