100 Transactions of the American Institute. 



of both wild and domestic animals. In some localities, roasted 

 ■wheat and fragments of bread were fonnd. Around the lieaps of 

 ashes were found the charred summits of posts arranged in circular 

 form. These were numerous, and in double rows, like houses along 

 streets. Taking all the facts into account, they were believed to be 

 the remains of what has been called a lacustrine village, which had 

 been destroyed by lire. The charred stumps indicated in each circle 

 the site of a dwelling erected on piles, and accessible onl}^ by water, 

 thus securing protection from enemies. In the course of the four or 

 live years following this discovery by Dr. Keller, the remains of not 

 less than 150 similar villages were found along the shores of the 

 lakes of Switzerland. "When and by whom were they built? Csesar 

 makes no mention of them. The race that dwelt there and their 

 habitations had already been swept away. In the neighborhood of 

 Salisbury, in England, Avithin the last two or three years, under- 

 ground dwellings, entered each through a single hole in the top, have 

 been discovered in great numbers. On the floors were found piles 

 of ashes in which were flint implements and burned bones. Among 

 the latter were found human bones scratched like the other bones 

 with sharp flints, and showing the use they had subserved to the 

 early Britons. The period to which these evidences of the age of 

 the art of baking or roasting refer, no one has fixed. It certainly 

 preceded that of the Roman conquest. Glancing at them from the 

 height of our present civilization, we appreciate the progress that 

 has been made. They enable us to estimate the development of a 

 race, however, rather than of the human family ; for it is prol table 

 that when the ancient inhabitants of Salisbury Plain were cannibals. 

 Pompeii and Herculanffium were seats of a brilliant, if not a noble 

 civilization, and China was already old. 



TuE Indian Oven. 

 The earliest device practised by the aboriginal inhabitants of our 

 Atlantic coast, and still in use at our clam bakes, was very simple. 

 It consisted of a shallow hole in the ground, usually paved with small 

 stones. Upon this paved surface a fire was built, and a mass of 

 embers accumulated to heat the stones. When the stones had become 

 sufiiciently heated, the embers were removed, the clams heaped in the 

 form of a cone, in their place, and covered with seaweed. The heat 

 of the stones relaxed the muscles of the clams in contact with them, 

 the shells parted, and water flowed out to be instantly converted into 



