17 
dwellings of the Afaij Arabs in the marshes of the Euphrates, the 
aquatic habitations of the negroes on the Tchadda and the villages 
of the Papuans of New Guinea, which are built on wooden plat¬ 
forms in the tide rivers—the lacustrine mode of life at a more 
distant period is proved to have been by no means peculiar to 
Switzerland, and may perhaps be regarded as typical of no race, 
but rather as having been adopted almost instinctively whenever 
and wherever the means lay at hand, and security from the attack 
of man or brute was sought. Even the sculptures of Nineveh 
exhibit traces of similar habits among some of the subjugated 
nations. Piles which supported similar villages to the Swiss lake- 
dwellings have been discovered in the lakes of Northern Italy. 
The Irish lake-dwellings (Crannoges) did not stand on a platform 
supported by piles, nor were they, strictly speaking, artificial 
islands, but chrans , small islets or shallows which existed in the 
lakes, and of which advantage was taken by the natives, who en¬ 
larged and fortified them by piles of oak timber,, and in some cases 
by stone work ; they were rarely approached by a causeway, but, 
generally speaking, were completely insulated. 
America furnishes us with the remarkable instance of a lacustrine 
village growing into a lacustrine city. At its first establishment, 
ancient Mexico stood on piles, and consisted of mere huts made of 
sticks, reeds, and mud, like those on the Swiss lakes; these frail 
structures were in time replaced by dwellings built of hewn stone 
and lime, whilst causeways of the same materials connected the 
vast city, for such it now was with the shore, and yet even in the 
palmiest days of its power, the insular position, the lacustrine 
character of ancient Mexico was maintained, and its stone cause¬ 
ways were spanned by bridges as easily destroyed as were the pile- 
supported bridges of the Paeonians, or of the Swiss lake-dwellings. 
The settlement of Robenhausen, from which the present very 
interesting series of objects was obtained, belongs to the stone 
period ; it has furnished no trace of the use of metal. Handles of 
tough ash wood, or the worked antlers of the red deer were used 
by its inhabitants for mounting their stone axes, and they also knew 
the convenience to be derived from perforating the handle and 
wearing the weapon suspended by a cord. At Robenbausen, as at 
most settlements in the stone age, in all countries, the boats were 
formed from the trunk of a tree, simply hollowed out; one of these 
found at Robenhausen, and made from the trunk of a yew tree, 
measured 12 feet long, and 2 feet wide. A boat of similar con¬ 
struction, but of much larger size, was found capsized at the 
bottom of the Lake Bienne ; it measured 50 feet long, and 3 J feet 
wide; such a boat has been found in connexion with nearly every 
Irish Crannoge. They were probably made much as they are by 
modern savages, and the description given by Captain Speke, of the 
method adopted by the natives living on the shores of the Tan¬ 
ganyika Lake, in Central Africa, doubtless places before us the 
general mode of constructing such vessels. After the tree has been 
D 
