62 ON THE LAND AND FRESH-WATER 



Their dwellings appear to have been circular or square huts, 

 grouped on wooden platforms elevated a few feet above the level of 

 and the water, supported above it by huge piles. Each cabin had 

 a trap-door opening on to the lake, and the whole settlement 

 communicated with dry land by means of a bridge. The huts of 

 the pileworks were built of wood, lined with mud, and on the ex- 

 terior, boughs of wood interlacing each other. We have been 

 enabled to trace the way they felled the trees for their piles. 

 They would burn a circle round the bottom of a tree, chop the 

 charred part away with their stone hatchets, then alternately 

 burn and chop until the tree fell. We see in the stumps the mark 

 of the fire, and the rude cuts of their stone axes. The piles 

 of the habitations of the men of the bronze period were much 

 more elaborate, being made with metal axes. The lake dwellings 

 were apparently first made by the men of the later stone period, 

 to defend themselves against formidable wild beasts ; afterwards, 

 in the bronze age, they were found to be useful in protecting the 

 inhabitants from the incursions of hostile tribes. It has been 

 suggested that bronze was introduced into Europe by the Phoeni- 

 cians about the time of the founding of Carthage, somewhere 

 about the year 800 before Christ The animals most formidable 

 to the men of the stone period in Switzerland (according to Mr. 

 Lubbock) were the brown bear, (Ursus arctos) ; the wolf, (Canis 

 lupus) ; the marsh boar, (Scrofa palustris) ; the common wild 

 boar, (Scrofa ferus) ; the Urus or wild bull, (Bos primigenius) ; 

 and the European bison, (Bos bison). The abundance of bones of 

 of the elk and red deer in these settlements would seem to shew 

 how densely wooded was the surrounding country at this time» 

 Twenty-eight species of quadrupeds, seventeen kinds of birds* 

 three of reptiles, and ten of fishes have been found, in fragmentary 

 condition in the pile works. At the village of Concise, on lake 

 Neufchatel, as many as 20,000 objects have been discovered 

 The stone implements seem to be principally axes, knives, saws, 

 lance and arrow-heads, corn-crushers, &c. These have been ela- 

 borately described by Mr. Lubbock in the number of the Natural 

 History Review for January, 1862, — this article is copied entire 

 in Silliman's American Journal for September, 1862. Their 

 arrow-heads the Celts often made out of the bones of animals 

 which they had slain in the chase. Specimens of their food 

 have even been obtained in the shape of unleavened cakes, and as 

 carbonized apples and pears. It is stated that our " rude fore 



