﻿Swiss Lake Dwellers. 



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so recently the subjects of investigation by an extinct society with a long 

 name and a learned Eastern professor. I can not close these few sheets 

 without making an earnest appeal to this Society to at hast raise its voice 

 and demand of the new Legislature an appropriation for the accurate and 

 complete survey and investigation of these mounds and earthworks. I 

 would like to raise voice against the destruction of these remains, but well 

 know the uselessness of it ; and, since they can not be preserved in tact, a 

 good survey is the next best thing, and an investigation and collection of 

 their relics in some museum, where they are not indiscriminately scattered, 

 would greatly aid students of this department and redound to the credit of 

 the State and its people. 



SWISS LAKE DWELLERS. 

 By Walter A. Dun, M. D. 



While traveling in Switzerland in the summer of 1882 I secured these 

 relics of the ancient Swiss Lake Dwellers, and am glad I have this oppor- 

 tunity to submit them for your inspection. 



They came from the dredging operations in making the quay at the city 

 of Ziirich, situated at the lower end of that long narrow Ziiricher See and 

 at the point where it is drained by the river Limmat. This body of lake 

 water, some twenty-five miles long and two or three broad, situated at the 

 beginning of the northern spurs of the Alps and extending at its southern 

 point between its rugged mountains, is peculiarly interesting as the lake 

 in which the first remains of the Lake Dwellers were discovered in 1854. 



I understand that before my return from Europe our worthy Custodian 

 presented to this Society a paper on this subject, so that I will confine 

 myself to a few interesting observations which I made on the scenes of 

 the dwellings of these people. A rapid glance at the various lakes in Teu- 

 tonic Switzerland, where these remains are most abundant, will show in the 

 main that their general trend is north and south and that the southern por- 

 tions are surrounded by rugged Alpine crags, while the northern banks 

 extend into low plains gradually ending in bogs of peat, or at any rate low- 

 lands and valleys from which outlets lead to the sea. When viewed from 

 some commanding eminence, as the Uetliberg or Rigi Kuhn, the shallow 

 points or tracts of water are very perceptible by a beautiful light bluish 

 color. The lakes of Lucerne, of Zug and of Zurich show all the points I 

 have alluded to, and being in the trodden path of tourists and travelers, 

 can not escape observation. It is along the portions of those lakes, where 

 a low level country surrounds and where the water is shallow, that the 



