242 
while on the other, which apparently formed the inner wall 
of the cabin, they are quite smooth. Some of those which 
have been found at Wangen are so large and so regular 
that M. Troyon feels justified in concluding that the cabins 
were circular, and from ten to fifteen feet in diameter. 
Though, therefore, the architecture of this period was very 
simple, still the weight to be sustained on the wooden plat- 
forms must have been considerable, and their construction, 
which must have required no small labour,* indicates a con- 
siderable population. It would, indeed, be most interesting 
if we could construct a retrospective census for these early 
periods, and M. Troyon has made an attempt to do so, though 
the results must, naturally, be somewhat vague. The settle- 
ment at Morges, which is one of the largest in the Lake of 
Geneva, is 1200 feet long and 150 broad, which would give a 
surface of 180,000 square feet. Taking the cabins as being 
15 feet in diameter, and supposing that they occupied half 
the surface, leaving the rest for gangways, we may estimate 
the number of cabins at 311, and if we suppose that, on an 
average, each was inhabited by four persons, we shall have, 
for the whole, a population of 1244. Starting from the same 
data, we should obtain for the Lake of Neufchatel. a popula- 
tion of about 5000. Altogether, 68 villages, belonging to 
the bronze age, have been discovered in Western Switzer- 
land, and by the same process of reasoning they may be 
supposed to have contained 42,500 persons ; while for the 
preceding epoch, the population may, in the same manner, be 
estimated at 31,875. 
For a moment it may surprise us that a people so uncivi- 
lised should have constructed their dwellings with immense 
labour on the water, when it would have been so much more 
easy to have built them on dry land. The first settlers in 
* " Increasing density of population is equivalent to increasing facility of 
production." Bastiat, Harmonies of Political (Economy, p. 12. 
