OF THE LAKE-VILLAGES. 169 



ornamented ; the knives have straight edges ; the sickles are 

 larger ; the pottery is more skilfully made and is of the kind 

 generally known as Roman : the personal ornaments are also 

 more varied, and glass for the first time makes its appearance. 



A field of battle at Tiefenau, near Berne, is remarkable for 

 the great number of iron weapons and implements which 

 have been found on it. Pieces of chariots, about a hundred 

 swords, fragments of coat of mail, lance-heads, rings, fibulae, 

 ornaments, utensils, pieces of pottery and of glass, accom- 

 panied by more than thirty Gaulish and Massaliote coins of 

 a date anterior to our era, enable us to refer this battle-field 

 to the Roman period. About forty Roman coins have also 

 been found at the small island on the Lake of Bienne. 



After this period we find no more evidences of Lake-habi- 

 tations on a large scale. Here and there, indeed, a few 

 fishermen may have lingered on the half- destroyed plat- 

 forms, but the wants and habits of the people^ had changed, 

 and the age of the Swiss Pileworks was at an end. 



We have, however, traced them through the ages of Stone 

 and Bronze down to the beginning of the Iron period. We 

 have seen evidences of a gradual progress in civilisation, and 

 improvement in the arts, an increase in the number of domestic 

 animals, and proofs at last of the existence of an extended com- 

 merce. We found the country inhabited only by rude savages, 

 and we leave it the seat of a powerful nation. Changes so 

 important as these are not effected in a day ; the progress of 

 the human mind is but .slow ; and the gradual additions to 

 human knowledge and power, like the rings in trees, enable 

 us to form some idea how distant must be the date of their 

 commencement. So varied, however, are the conditions of 

 the human mind, so much are all nations affected by the 

 influence of others, that when we attempt to express our 

 impressions, so to say, in terms of years, we are baffled by 

 the complexity of the problem. 



