DAVIS: THE LAKE-DWELLINGS IN EAST YORKSHIRE. 
103 
and at no great distance was an island the surface of which at the 
present time is twenty-five feet above the sea-level. It was between 
the shore of the lake and this island, still named Goose Island, that 
the pile structure was placed. It consists at the base of a number of 
trunks of trees placed horizontally on the bottom of the lake, and 
held in position by rudely-pointed stakes. The largest timbers, 
twenty feet in length and eighteen inches in diameter, extend from 
east to west across the course of the stream, which appears to have 
run in a northerly direction. The direction of the flow of the water 
is indicated by the addition of diagonal piles placed to lean against 
the larger trunks, in order to prevent their being disturbed by floods 
or other circumstances causing more than the ordinar}^ pressure. 
Between the large timbers, which were laid parallel to each other, 
with as great regularity as their rough unhewn surfaces allowed, 
shorter trunks were placed transversely, resulting in a rude but solid 
and compact h'amework. The whole, fastened in position by stakes, 
four to six feet in length, driven into the bottom of the lake, formed a 
rectangular platform thirty yards in length from east to west, and 
eighteen in breadth from north to south. At the south-east corner 
a pair of large timbers extend parallel with each other, about five feet 
apart, from the platform to the shore of the lake ; they have been 
prepared with greater care than those used for the platform itself ; 
the upper surface is hewn flat, and they have been carefully fixed in 
position, evidently to form a means of communication between the 
habitations and the adjoining land. The trunks and branches of 
trees are mostly oak, ash, birch, willow, and hazel. The interstices 
between the timbers of the platform were filled up to the top with 
broken wood and twigs until a level surface was obtained ; this was 
covered with bark and sand. On the foundation thus securely formed, 
probably reaching a little above the surface of the water, were erected 
the dwellings of the builders. 
The structure exposed during the excavations proved that the 
original platform, after the lapse of a considerable period of time, 
either subsided beneath the water, or for some other reason became 
untenable, and a second one was added. The newer or upper plat- 
form is arranged much in the same way as the lower one. The 
