248 Original Articles. [April, 



remains in other lakes where similar dwellings were soon discovered. 

 These habitations beginning with the earliest portions of the Stone 

 Age extend to the time of the Father of History in Greece, and even 

 down to historical times in Switzerland. 



Herodotus* speaks of a race of Thracians who dwelt on Lake 

 Prasias,f who lived in huts constructed on platforms on the lakes. 

 These platforms were originally constructed by the united labour of 

 the community, but that after this every man on taking a fresh wife 

 (and polygamy was common), was compelled to add three piles to the 

 common stock. The labour of cutting, pointing, and then driving 

 these piles, which are mostly of fir, but also of oak, birch, and aspen, 

 when only stone axes could be used, must have been enormous. We 

 find that at this early period the piles were small, not being more 

 than 3 to 9 inches in diameter, but from 15 to 30 feet long, since the 

 spot was usually so chosen that the water was about 20 feet deep. At 

 Wangen alone upwards of 40,000 piles have been found. 



In Switzerland, M. Troyon J says the piles were usually arranged 

 parallel to the shore at a distance of from 100 to 300 feet, and from one 

 to two feet apart. On this common platform were constructed circular 

 huts of wood, interlaced with branches and daubed with mud. Por- 

 tions of this daubing, burnt probably in the destruction of the dwell- 

 ings (nearly all these habitations seemed to have perished by fire), 

 have been found at the bottom of the lakes. The curve that these 

 pieces of burnt clay give would require a diameter of from 10 to 12 

 feet. Allowing a diameter of 15 feet, and as much space for means of 

 communication as for dwellings, the platform at Morges on the Lake 

 of Geneva, which is about 1,200 feet long by 150 broad, would have 

 held 316 huts, and these, with an average of four inhabitants to each 

 hut, would give a population of 1,264. A similar calculation for the 

 Lake of Neuchatel would have afforded security to 5,000 people, 

 whilst the whole of Western Switzerland would have contained 

 upwards of 30,000 during the Stone Age, and more than 40,000 in the 

 Bronze Period. Beneath his dwelling each man had a trap-door, 

 through which, says Herodotus of the race of whom he spoke, it was 

 only necessary to thrust a basket and leave it for a short period, when 

 it might be taken up full of fish. Fishermen say, that shade is so 

 grateful to these creatures that this is quite possible, but it sounds 

 rather like what our old author was told, than what he had seen 

 with his own eyes. Fortunately for us these trap-doors, or the inter- 

 stices of the beams, became the receptacles not only of a great deal 

 that must have been considered rubbish, but of much also that was 

 valuable to the owners as well as to modern antiquaries. From the 

 site of only one of these dwellings have been recovered not less than 

 500 bronze hair-pins of an ornamental character, a fact that looks as 



* Book v. c. 16. 



t Now Lake Takinos, in Turkey. It has been stated in the ' Kevue de 

 l'lnstruction Publique,' that the remains of these very dwellings have been re- 

 discovered by a M. Deville. 



X See Plate, and a translation of a paper by M. Troyon in the ' Ulster Journal 

 of Archaeology,' vol. vii. 



