other countries in natural development, proves the perfect adaptability of the earth as a residence for man at other periods. We also know that the Australian heaps up the shells of shell-fish in mounds which represent the "refuse-heaps" or "Kjokkenmöddings" of Denmark, and finally, that on the other side of Torres Straits, a race akin to the Australians are among the few people who now build their dwellings like the extinct lake people who lived at so remote a date from our earliest traditions. In the time of the ancient people the country was so totally dissimilar from what it is now-broad stretches of land running across the channel, and perhaps quite a hundred miles into the Atlantic, with much that is now land of Norfolk and Kent, then under water and islands,-that without a map I should despair of conveying an idea of it. As to the climate, I believe it must suffice to say, that it appears to have been cold and wintry; the soil bearing chiefly the alder, willow, oak, hazel, and similar trees, adapted to endure a low temperature and little genial weather. CHAPTER III. THE FIRST BUILDERS. "Maestro mio, or mi dimostra, Che gente è questa." THE LAKE DWARFS OF SWITZERLAND.-The singular settlements of the lake people of old Switzerland which have recently attracted so much attention, were, as is now pretty generally known, first brought to light about ten years ago, during the dry winter of 1853 and 1854, when the waters of the lake of Zurich having fallen much lower than usual, the townspeople of Meilen, on the borders of the lake, decided upon taking advantage of such an excellent opportunity to reclaim some part of the bed of the lake. This was done by dredging up the mud from the nearest part and heaping it upon the part to be reclaimed, and it was during this process that they discovered, that deep in the ground there were ranged a quantity of small wooden piles, among which lay scattered ancient hammers, axes, celts, and such like implements. Except an amulet or bracelet of brass wire and a small bronze hatchet, they all belonged to what geologists call the stone age. We are indebted to Dr. Ferdinand Keller for an excellent account of some of these invaluable relics which he has illustrated. This gentleman has also Antiquarische Geschschaft in Zürich, b. 12, u. 13, 1858 u. 1861. M figured an ideal picture of what these quaint old villages must have been in far-off times when they were the homes of a long-lost race, and ere "The waves had roll'd Above the cities of a world gone by." M. Troyon has also given a most lucid and valuable description of the lake buildings in his recent work,* also accompanied with illustrations not only of the buildings, but also of the weapons belonging respectively to the age of stone, bronze, and iron. The reader who is desirous of going thoroughly into the subject will find it very carefully treated in Lyell's Antiquity of Man" and in the writings of Lubbock and Wylie. Here my limits as well as the nature of the subject compel me to restrict myself almost entirely to a notice of those discoveries relating to the age of stone, confessed by all writers to be the first age in the life of man. 66 It seems according to Dr. Keller that even as recently as the eighteenth century there were several fishing-huts on the river Limmat, near Zurich, constructed on much the same plan as those of the old lake people. In this there is nothing improbable. Similar abodes are made by the Papoos of New Guinea, in the Bay of Dorei, and by some of the people of Borneo ; there seems also little doubt that the crannoges of Ireland, alike in purpose if not in structure, were continued in Ireland in the lakes till a comparatively recent period; and even now the fishers by the Volga raise their reed cabins in the middle of the streams. * Habitations Lacustres par Fred. Troyon, 1860. In the lakes of Switzerland these dwellings seem to have been very numerous. M. Troyon and others give facts which can only lead to the conclusion that these old waters were once thickly peopled. The settlements are found in the large lakes of Constance, Zurich, Geneva, and Neufchatel, besides several of the smaller ones. According to Mr. Lubbock, who explored them in company with MM. Morlot and Sutor, twenty-four have been found in the Geneva lake and twenty-six on lake Neufchatel. Some belong to the age of stone and flint, others to the bronze age. Amongst the oldest may be reckoned the towns of Meilen, Wangen, Moosseedorf, and Wauwyl. The reader will find in the second volume of "All the Year Round" a capitally written account of the discoveries made at Moosseedorf. When this small lake was drained the long-deserted habitation of a colony of the lake people was brought to light. From the account there given and others we find that a vast advance had been already made beyond the life of the gravelburied races, for fragments of pottery were found, chisels, hatchets, poniards, needles, a wooden saw or hatchet, with holes to let in flint-teeth,* &c. There were also flint implements, arrow-heads of rock-crystal, bone, &c. The most striking feature is the extreme smallness of the people, they were the tiniest, nattiest folks ever yet heard of. Their quaint little saws are three inches long, the hatchets still smaller; a pretty baby-hatchet one is called. It is portrayed as "a piece of serpentine not two inches long, very well sharpened however, and inserted with wonderful firm *Troyon. Habitations Lacustres. a ness into a detached portion of stag's horn;" dandy poniard" was found, consisting of a polished piece of horn about four inches in length fixed in a piece of antler. A bracelet was picked up on the skeleton of a full-grown person; a child could scarcely have put its hand through it. Professor Troyon told the author of this communication that the only person he ever saw who could slip on one of these bracelets was a Peruvian lady, the last descendant of Montezuma! Even a bronze sword, belonging apparently to a later and bigger race, was so small that Professor Troyon, whose hand was by no means large, could only get three fingers on the handle. They were heavy swells in their way and stuck up their hair with pins of bone, covered their fingers with rings and adorned their wrists with weighty bracelets; on their necks they wore collars of deer antlers, and on their breasts were teeth of the great bear, doubtless to impart to their hearts the courage of that redoubtable brute. They had also their sports, for large stone. quoits or disks have been dug up, and pierced nuts have been found which are supposed to have served as rattles to still the infantile turbulence of early days. The first discoveries made at Moosseedorf showed only knotted garments made something like a very fine fisher's net, but some excavations in the old bed of the lake Pfäffikon, near Zurich, proved that the lakedwellers on this site at least were well acquainted with weaving and tanning. "Woven linen stuffs," says Mr. Wylie in a letter to the Times, "and flax in every stage of preparation were found. Leather also was found in a condition which permits the inference that the art of tanning was also known there." This |