J. Lubbock on the Ancient Lake Habitations of Switzerland. 165 



very simple, still the weight to be sustained on the wooden plat- 

 forms must have been considerable, and their construction, which 

 must have required no small labor,* indicates a considerable 

 population. It would, indeed, be most interesting if we could 

 construct a retrospective census for these early periods, and M. 

 Troyon has made an attempt to do so, though the results must 

 naturally, be somewhat vague. The settlement at Morges, which 

 is one of the largest in the Lake of Geneva, is 1200 feet long and 

 150 broad, which would give a surface of 180,000 square feet. 

 Taking the cabins as being 15 feet in diameter, and supposing 

 that they occupied half the surface, leaving the rest for gang- 

 ways, we may estimate the number of cabins at 311, and if we 

 suppose that, on an average, each was inhabited by four persons, 

 J^e shall have, for the whole, a population of 1244. Starting 

 from the same data, w^e should obtain for the Lake of Neufcha- 

 tel, a population of about 5000. Altogether, 68 villages, belong- 

 ing to the Bronze Age, have been discovered in Western Switz- 

 erland, and by the same process of reasoning they may be sup- 

 posed to have contained 42,500 persons ; while for the precedmg 

 epoch, the population may, in the same manner, be estimated at 



, For a moment it may surprise us that a people so uncivilized 

 should have constructed their dwelHngs with immense labor on 

 t^ie water, when it would have been so much more easy to have 

 Duilt them on dry land The first settlers in Switzerland, how- 

 jrer, had to contend with the Boar, the Wolf, the Bear, and the 

 y^ ; and subsequently, when the population increased and 

 disputes arose, the lake habitations, no doubt, acted as a fortih- 

 jation, and protected man from man, as they had before preserved 

 ^I'jfrom wild beasts. . , . , 



Switzerland is not, bv any means, the only country m which 

 laife dwellings have been used as fortresses. In Ireland, a num- 

 ber of more or less artificial islands, called "Crannoges t are 

 ^«own historically, to have been used as strongholds by the 

 petty chiefs. They are composed of earth and stones, strength- 

 ^^f by numerous piles, and have supplied the Irish Arcbaeolo- 

 f^ with numerous weapons and bSnes. From the Crannoge 

 « Dunshuglin, indeed, more than 150 cart loads of bones were 

 f ^ined, and were used as manure ! These lake dwelling of 



^eUnd, however, come down to a much later period than those 

 ^\ Switzerland, and are frequently mentioned in early history. 



