II l'U<H'KKI>IN<;s OK T11K ANATOMICAL AND A.NTHBOPOLOGICAL 



esque islands let us accompany our explorer in fancy across Kurope 

 to another scene, and perhaps an unexpected one, of ancient human 

 habitation I mean Swit/erland. This country, as you all know, 

 abounds with lakes large and small, and the ancient people, evidently 

 for the sake of safety and security from the attacks of their enemies, 

 constructed their dwellings on platforms raised on piles driven into 

 the bed of the lake. In shallow parts of many of the Swiss lakes, 

 varying in depth from 5 to 15 feet, these wooden piles have been 

 observed, in some cases worn down to the surface of the mud, in 

 others projecting slightly above it. The Greek historian, Herodotus, 

 describes just such a lake dwelling which existed in his time in a 

 small lake in Paconia, now forming a part of modern Houmania, 

 The Swiss lake dwellings first attracted attention during the dry 

 winter of 1853-54, when the lakes and rivers sank lower than had 

 ever been previously known, and when the inhabitants on Lake 

 Zurich resolved to raise the level of some ground and turn it into 

 arable land by throwing mud upon it got by dredging in adjoining 

 shallow water. During these dredging operations they discovered a 

 number of wooden piles deeply driven into the bed of the lake, and 

 among them a great many hammers, axes and other instruments of 

 stone. Fragments of rude pottery fashioned by the hand were abund- 

 ant, also masses of charred wood. ( )f this burned timber, on this and 

 other sites afterwards explored, there was such an abundance as to 

 lead to the conclusion that most of the settlements had perished by 

 fire. It must be doubtless owing to this circumstance that so many 

 precious tools and works of art have been preserved in the mud. 

 It is believed that as many as 300 wooden huts sometimes constituted 

 one settlement containing about 1,000 inhabitants. The number of 

 these lake villages is wonderful, and they occur on all the larger and 

 most of the smaller lakes. Some are exclusively of the Stone age 

 and others of the Bronze period. On the site of a settlement of the 

 Bronze period on the Lake of Geneva no less than forty hatchets of 

 that metal have been dredged up. In the settlements of this age the 

 wooden piles are not so much decayed as are those of the Stone 



