PREADAMITE MAN. 127 



short. Copper hatchets have indeed been found in certain of 

 the Danish peats; but the opinion is that the people of the 

 stone age were conquered by a race coming from the East, 

 and to whom the use of bronze tools was familiar. Over 

 various parts of this peat-formation heaps of refuse, compar- 

 able to dust-heaps, have accumulated ; and in these frequent 

 evidences of human handiwork are disclosed, though none 

 comparable for workmanship and finish to what have been re- 

 covered from the lacustrine villages presently to be noticed. 



During the dry winter of 1853-4 the lakes and rivers of 

 Switzerland had sunk lower than ever had been known. So 

 low had the water of the Lake of Zurich fallen, that the in- 

 habitants resolved to embank and turn to account a portion of 

 the shore. They sought to accomplish this by dredging the 

 shallow water, and banking up the mud on the already de- 

 nuded land. In the course of this operation they made a 

 strange discovery. A number of wooden piles were found 

 driven into the bed of the lake, and amongst them a great 

 many tools, such as axes, celts (i.e. flint cutting-instruments), 

 hammers, &c. All these, with two exceptions, belonged to 

 the stone period ; the exceptions were an armlet of thin brass 

 wire and a small bronze hatchet. Fragments of pottery too 

 were abundant ; also charred wood, the latter in such profu- 

 sion as to warrant the belief that the lacustrine village had 

 been destroyed by fire. 



In many Swiss lakes wooden piles are seen projecting from 

 the bottom, and occasionally the remains of ancient cottages 

 have been found upon these piles. Evidently they once sup- 

 ported villages mostly of unknown date, though the most an- 

 cient of them corresponded with a period when man in those 

 parts had not learned the use of metals for the construction 

 of edge-tools. This is proved by the existence of cutting- 

 instruments of flint, like those already alluded to as mingled 

 with human bones at Liege and in the valley of the Somme 

 only perhaps a little more elaborately formed. They are 



