182 ANTHROPOLOGY. 
New Jersey, they are flat upon each side, with more or less bevel- 
ling of the edges. 
With reference to the use of these plates, Mr. Evans quotes 
Rey. Canon Ingram, as suggesting “ that these British plates were 
bracers or guards, to protect the left arm of the wearer against 
the blow of the string in shooting with the bow.” Had this been 
one of the uses to which some of the American forms had been 
put, would it not have been retained by the Indians until now? 
And does any tribe of our aborigines use such a guard when hunt- 
ing or fighting with the bow? There seems to be much reason, 
indeed, to believe that these plates were “bracers,” in England, 
and it may be that many of the American forms were used in 
twisting cord.and in condensing sinew; but as we have found so 
many in graves, in the position we have described, we cannot but 
think that the vast majority were merely for ornamental purposes. 
— Cuartes C. Azsorr, M.D. 
CoLLECTIONS or Swiss Lacusrrine Rewics. — The present notice 
is written for the benefit of gentlemen interested in prehistoric 
archeology, who may be desirous of acquiring a collection of relics 
from the ancient lake-dwellings of Switzerland. I obtained myself 
a pretty good series of those objects through Mr. Jacob Messi- 
kommer, the well known owner and explorer of the celebrated pile- 
work of Robenhausen, on the shore of Lake Pfaffikon, Canton of 
Zürich. This lake formerly extended farther inland, and the site 
of the lake-village is at present occupied by a formation of peat, 
containing a great variety of relics which illustrate the curious 
phase of existence of those lake-dwelling people. Among the 
objects in my collection I will mention stag’s horn in a natural or 
worked state, frequently made into sockets for holding hatchets ; 
bone awls and chisel-like instruments ; saws, cutting implements, 
scrapers, arrow and spearheads of flint; stone axes and chisels, 
crushing-stones, whetstones; pieces exhibiting the method em- 
ployed in sawing and splitting stone for making axes, etc. ; pottery, 
_ plain and ornamented, in fragments and in the shape of complete 
=- vessels; articles of wood, such as floaters for nets, twirling-sticks, 
ete. Of particular interest are the specimens of cloth, woven from 
- flax, and perfectly preserved, owing to the carbonized state in 
_ Which they occur. In the same condition are the numerous vege- 
: tahia remains found i in the jani around the piles. The most im- 
