OF THE LAKE OP NEUCHATEL. 381 



prominent heel at tlie origin of the hhide.* The chemical composition of the 

 bronze is the same with that of the reaping-hooks of the lake. 



Dr. Schild has recently discovered on the plateau of Granges, in the canton 

 of Soleure, a series of these heeled reaping-hooks, accompanied by four very 

 perfect paring-knives and a fragment of a sword, intermingled with calcined 

 pebbles and earth, which leads him to conjecture that at this place there was 

 once a workshop or foundry, more especially as the paring-knives are new, 

 without the least trace of being worn. A not less characteristic specimen of 

 knife-axe has just been found near Neuchatel, in the defiles of Seyon. In general, 

 this form seems more frequent on firm land than in the lacustriau stations. The 

 same appears to be the case with the reaping-hooks with a heel, which have not 

 yet been found in the palafittes, but which occur at Hallstadt. The question 

 therefore is, whether they pertain to the same epoch. 



M. Suess has lately published {Bull el in de I'Academie des Sciences de Vienne, 

 tome li) a view of very important discoveries which he has just made in Lower 

 Austria, where antiquities, analogous to those of our lakes, are found heaped 

 together on the summits of hills, especially in the Vitur-Berg, not far from the 

 small village of Eggenburg. There are found here, along with a prodigious 

 quantity of flakes of silex, which seem to indicate manufactures of the epoch of 

 stone, objects in bronze, such as brooches and poniards, some articles of iron, 

 but chietiy utensils of stone and a vast amount of fragments of pottery, some- 

 times rude and mixed with small pebbles, sometimes of a fine homogeneous 

 paste, which would seem to imply, not a people possessing simultaneously all 

 these objects of stone, bronze, and pottery, but simply that these places have 

 been inhabited during many consecutive ages. M. Forel has picked up m the 

 environs of Morges a bracelet in all points similar to those of his rich lacustriau 

 collection. M. Gerlach has discovered in the alluvion of the Sionne, near Sion 

 in Valais, bracelets characteristic of the age of bronze, accompanied by calcined 

 bones, which would tend to prove that the tribes of that epoch were accustomed 

 to burn their dead, and again might serve to explain the rarity of human remains. 

 M. Thioly,t last year, collected in one of the g-rottoes of the Grand Saleve, (the 

 cavern of Bossey,) near Geneva, a quantity of fragments of pottery, which, by 

 their designs, altogether remind us of the age of bronze. Fragments of vessels 

 not less curious, but of tine paste, accompanied, as at the Graud-Saleve, by 

 numerous bones, were some time ago found by M. Otz, ctvil engineer, in a grotto 

 on the banks of the llense, in the canton of Neuchatel. 



M. Quiquerez has just announced as existing in the Bernese Alps, in front of 

 Vorbourg, and at a point which commands the entrance of the Val de Felomont, 

 a remarkable series of prehistoric objects, which relate essentially to the a^e of 

 bronze. They consist of several knives, an arrow point, part of a bracelet, all 

 of bronze, besides a considerable collection of fragments of earthen vessels impei*- 

 perfectly baked, and bearing figures which recall in all respects those of our pala- 

 fittes.f 



RELIGIOUS EMBLEMS. 



Hitherto we have discovered no idol nor anything having reference to a cult 

 or worship, unless we consent to regard as religious emblems certain earthen 

 objects, the so-called lacustriau crescents. These have, in effect, the crescent 

 form, the curve and horns varying in different speciraeus ; some are furnished 



*The same form with the heel is found also in Scandinavia and at many points of France 

 and Germany, (Nillson, Urdmcohner, tab. iii, fig. 41.) It remains to bo known whetlier the 

 hillocks, which are found by thousands in the environs of Gorgier, were tombs, or places of 

 incineration. 



t Debris de V induslrie humaine trouces dans la caverne de Bossey. Geneva, 1885. 



i Indicateur dliist. et d'antiquitis suisses. March, 186G, page Ki. — M. Quiquerez mentions, 

 moreover, objects of iron and vessels fabricated with the wheel, which would indicate the age 

 of. iron; and, again, an arrow of silex, which would point to the age of stone; so that this 

 station would seem to afford remains of thi-ee ages. 



