1 6 Perry, A Iegalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines. 



Two large groups are thus left — the group round Lake 

 Constance and the Terramara group of Italy. Here we 

 seem to be at a standstill until we remember that all the 

 rivers running into the Po still contain gold, and the 

 basin of the Po was famous in antiquity for its gold 

 washings ; it is the only river in Italy which was so 

 famed. The Helvetii were said to wash their rivers 

 assiduously for gold and the sands of the Rhine, below 

 Basle, are still washed every summer for gold dust by 

 the peasants of the Grand-Duchy of Baden.-- Lake 

 Constance gives rise to the Rhine, and therefore the 

 relationship between the pile dwellings and the gold is 

 suggestive, but the distribution of the Terramara settle- 

 ments is most precise. They are simply all crowded 

 together in the Po basin, and are not found at all in the 

 regions to the north and south. 



I am quite well aware of the great complexities of 

 the problems which are presented by the lake dwellings 

 and Terramara settlements, and it must be clearly under- 

 stood why reference is made to them here. Once the 

 distribution of the earliest mining and washing settle- 

 ments are under consideration, it becomes impossible to 

 ignore Switzerland and Upper Austria, regions whose 

 early workings are well known. A survey of terrace- 

 cultivation, undertaken before I had any idea as to the 

 existence of such correspondences as are now put forward, 

 had revealed the existence of terrace-cultivation in the 

 Rhine valley, Switzerland and the Appenines, places 

 rather outside the area which Dr. Elliot Smith and I had 

 mapped out for the megalithic culture. It could not be 

 decided whether these terraces were ancient or modern, 

 but the discovery that Tuscany, Switzerland, and the 

 Rhine all came within the mining region at once gave 



- n Keller, p. 60. King, " Precious Stones an:l Cem>,' 104, 10S. 



