LAKES. 
257 
stant the level of the great Swiss lakes must have 
been for many centuries or even some thousands of 
years. Many of the lake villages belong to the Stone 
Age, and the stumps of the piles on which they were 
built still remain. 
The platforms could not, of course, have been 
constructed over water more than at the outside 
5 metres in depth, so that during this whole period 
the level of the lakes must have been practically 
what it is now. Indeed, the structure of the Beine 
itself shows that the level must have remained ap- 
proximately the same for a very long period. 
Scenery of Switzerland. /. 
