﻿Swiss Lake Dioellers. 



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lings than on land, for being of wood built on water they would have been 

 more easy of approach by boats and set on fire, for example, at night, 

 leaving the way for retreat open. There is no agency so powerful in war 

 for havoc, devastation and panic as fire, and to tribes of lake dwellers these 

 villages would have been an easy prey. It is true that we have evidences 

 of the burning and rebuilding of these towns, yet it has been attributed to 

 accident rather than the horrors of war. It is further true that had they 

 been compelled to fight a barbaric land enemy of great strength we would 

 have looked for them to fortify some of the commanding eminences about 

 the lake, since they were an industrious people. Based, then, entirely upon 

 these few facts, I think* that if they ever acted a part in defense it was 

 chance and a secondary part to their original conception and purpose. 

 There are a few other interesting facts about these people. They were 

 Asiatic in origin, as numerous bones of their domestic animals, viz.: the cow, 

 horse, sheep, hog, etc., ^hich are of Asiatic origin, attest. They were a 

 people who, while engaged in fishing, hunting and war, yet were in quite 

 a degree agricultural, and, more than that, cultivated their grain with skill. 

 They had apples, ground nuts, wheat, etc. . showing considerable degree of 

 cultivation. They are peculiar as representing in some settlements stone 

 relics alone, while in later settlements implements of copper and bronze 

 occur. We often hear of the ages of stone, copper, bronze, iron and steel, 

 but these are indefinite phrases ; we have no ages, they are merged gradually 

 one into the other. We call ourselves the age of steel, and still you find 

 stone, copper, bronze and iron used ; and just so all ages after the stone 

 age are combinations to which time has added the others. The lake dwel- 

 lers, then, in their earlier periods, used only implements of stone, later 

 they began the use of copper and bronze, which in a measure superceded 

 the stone and materially enhanced their progress. 



This advance of a rude people may well be likened to the foundation of 

 a house in which each course of stone is necessary and also prepares the 

 way for the one to follow. Each course must have its beginning, gradu- 

 ally cover over the previous one, to be covered itself in its turn. Just so is 

 it with this, subject of ages. Each, like a course of stone or brick in a 

 foundation, must have its beginning. It is laid in the mortar of a previous 

 age, whicn it does not suddenly blot out, but gradually covers and super- 

 sedes, leaving a small space uncovered. Thus, at the beginning of the age 

 of bronze, that article was rare ; gradually it became more plentiful and 

 superseded stone in the exact proportion as it became more plentiful, and so 

 on it has been with those ages that follow. Perhaps the most interesting 

 point connected with this curious people lies in a consideration of their 



