26 Reviews—Desor on Lake-habitations. 
to the present day. But into this question, and that, whether the 
refrigeration was general or only partial, we need not enter. We 
hope that we have said enough to induce our readers to consult Mr. 
Prestwich’s excellent memoir for themselves. ‘They will find in it a 
careful and detailed exposition of facts: and the theories based upon 
them are evidently the result of long and careful reflection ; and, 
though on some minor points there is sure to be a difference of 
opinion, yet the main argument, as to the process of excavation and 
the length of time necessarily involved in it, will, we are confident, 
eventually meet with general acceptance, even if the rising school of 
geologists, who have no longer ‘the chill of poverty in their bones’ 
may be induced to draw more largely than Mr. Prestwich upon the 
enormous balance of past time which stands in their favour in the 
Book of Nature. 
Les CONSTRUCTIONS LACUSTRES DU LAC DE NEUFCHATEL. Par 
E. Drsor. Neufchatel, 1864. 
HE Lake of Neufchatel is remarkable, even among the Swiss 
Lakes, for the number and variety of the ancient remains 
which have been found in it; and Professor Desor is remarkable, 
even among the Swiss archeologists, for the care with which he has 
studied them. While the lakes of Eastern Switzerland contain 
villages of the Stone Age only, and those of Western Switzerland 
of the Stone and Bronze Ages, the Lake of Neufchatel, besides 
many villages belonging to the last-mentioned periods, contains also 
almost the only station which has yet been discovered, referable to 
the Age of Iron. Thus, the memoir by Professor Desor, confined 
though it is to the antiquities of this one lake, contains, in fact, an 
epitome of the whole subject. 
Commencing with the Age of Stone, he remarks that the piles 
are generally much larger than those used in later periods; and that, 
instead of projecting into the water, they are in most cases worn 
down by the action of the waves, to the level of the stones by which 
they are surrounded. ‘These stones form slight elevations at the 
bottom of the lake, and are known in Switzerland under the name of 
‘Steinbergs. It is evident that, unable to drive their piles into the 
bottom of the lake, the early people heaped stones up round the 
piles, and thus kept them in a perpendicular position. In other 
lakes, of which the bottom is soft, they have been able to drive the 
piles sufficiently deep to keep them upright. As yet, in the Swiss 
Lakes only two skulls have been found which can, with any rea- 
sonable probability, be referred to the Stone Age ; one by M. Messi- 
kommer, at Robenhausen, the other at Meilen, on the Lake of Ziirich. 
The former has not yet been described ; the latter exactly resembles 
those found at the Bronze Age station of Auvernier. As regards 
the axes of nephrite, which have been supposed to indicate a com- 
merce with Asia, Professor Desor suggests that the material may 
have been obtained from the conglomerate known as the ‘Nagel- 
flue.” He does not, however, actually state that any fragments of 
this interesting substance have yet been discovered in that deposit. 
