VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 311 



and among the Tunguses and Lamuts, who had 

 learned from the Jakuts. 



But there is an older chapter of Siberian 

 history which was closed in the seventeenth 

 century, as that of the people of the pile-dwellings 

 of Switzerland had ended when the Romans 

 entered Helvetia. Multitudes of sepulchral 

 tumuli, termed like those of European Russia, 

 "kurgans," are scattered over the north Asiatic 

 plains, and are especially agglomerated about the 

 upper waters of the Jenisei. Some are modern, 

 while others, extremely ancient, are attributed to 

 a quasi-mythical people, the Tschudes. These 

 Tschudish kurgans abound in copper and gold 

 articles of use and luxury, but contain neither 

 bronze nor iron. The Tschudes procured their 

 copper and their gold from the metalliferous rocks of 

 the Ural and the Altai ; and their old shafts, adits, 

 and rubbish heaps led the Russians to the re- 

 discovery of the forgotten stores of wealth. The 

 race to which the Tschudes belonged and the age 

 of the works which testify to their former exist- 

 ence, are alike unknown. But seeing that a 

 rumour of them appears to have reached 

 Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the pile- 

 dwelling civilisation of Switzerland may perhaps 

 come down as late as the fifth century B.C., the 



continue to work their iron in the primitive fashion ; as tho 

 argument that metallurgic skill implies settled agricultural life 

 not unfrequently makes its appearance. 



