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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



Lake Dwellers were most numerous. It may have been their nature to 

 build in the water, yet it seems far more probable to "me that the peculiar 

 remains of cities or towns built over the water on piles were due to the fact 

 that the people merely adapted themselves to the circumstances of their 

 surroundings. At the present time scattered along the banks of these 

 lakes, and especially to be seen on the lake of Zug, are many houses of the 

 present Teutonic Swiss peasants, which project over and incroach upon the 

 lake waters. The area of arable land being small, it is used for agricultural 

 purposes, and a dwelling built over the waters of the lake is so much space 

 gained. Then, too, the means of communication being by water, the house 

 subserves the triple purpose of dwelling, storehouse for exports, and boat 

 house. Any one with slight experience in boating must know how nasty 

 it is to land a boat in shallow water with a low boggy bank. It would be 

 among the first natural impulses to avoid a repetition of such semi-wading, 

 miry experiences, and this was no doubt easily accomplished by a pier of 

 logs, which, being constructed and improved upon and extended as time 

 passed, gave the initial start to the architecture of pile construction. The 

 farther this pier was extended into the lake the deeper the water, so larger 

 boats with heavier draft could approach and unload. This must have con- 

 siderably increased the labor of carrying these articles ashore, and eventu- 

 ally have led to the building of a storehouse at the end of the pier, and 

 thus the first house was built over water, and around it would naturally 

 cluster, as time passed, other houses for occupants, which would eventuate 

 in a lake dwelling settlement. Then, of course, as soon as each house could 

 be approached by all classes of boats, the necessity of a general supply from 

 a storehouse would disappear and the storehouse be converted into other 

 purposes. Other advantages were undoubtedly derived from this mode of 

 living. The excrement of men and animals was disposed of in the lake, 

 thereby avoiding much danger, for we know that the two great diluents 

 and oxidizing agents for noxious matter are air and water. The offal from 

 eating also no doubt attracted and fed quantities of fish, of which we are 

 certain, judging from the remains of nets and hooks, these ancient people 

 fully availed themselves. 



The purpose of defense I believe to be entirely one of secondary consid- 

 eration Dr. Daniel Wilson splendidly defined man when he said, "He. is 

 the fire using animal. " We find no prehistoric remains so extensive or 

 numerous in Switzerland as those of the lake dwellers. Are we then to 

 believe that their pile towns have defended them from barbarians less civ- 

 ilized and less numerous than themselves? In defending themselves from 

 tribes of similar lake dwellers they would have been worse in these dwel- 



