stakes of the old Lakers. Once exposed to the
air they crumbled; and their external skin was
found to be only a feeble covering to rottenness.
Professor Troyon, then, cleverly devised a mode
of perpetuating these fleeting forms, by injections
of plaster, from which moulds and casts
were obtained. These casts, short and
fragmentary, looked very like the ends of not very
large hop-poles. The marks of the stone-chisels
were still plainly discernible on the stakes, and
they were sharpened to a point. The cabins
that had been raised on these piles had
left more enduring fragments. Most interesting
were the morsels of old wall, which
consisted of unbaked clay, bearing the impressions
of woody twigs, whereby it was evident that the
primitive cabins had been formed of boughs of
trees plastered over and between with clay.
From the fragments being calculable segments
of a circle, two facts were ascertained: namely,
that the cabins had been circular, and the
circumference of them about fourteen feet. Some
of these fragmentary piles and dwellings that were
found in the Lake of Constance were above a
hundred yards from the shore; and that they always
had been so, and had not been thrown farther off
from the mainland by any rising or agitation of
the waters, was proved by pieces of earthen pots
that lay at the bottom on the stirless depths, so
near together, just as they had broken and fallen
ages before, that much pottery had been
reconstructed from such fragments. I observe, in
passing, that the fragments of pottery are of
rough manufacture, and, in their dark burnt-
looking substance contain morsels of shining
quartz, or mica, unassimilated to the prevailing
texture. I possess some fragments, that, by
carrying out the segments of the circle, appear
to have been of great size (singular exception to
the general littleness of the relics): as big,
indeed, as Roman wine-vases. Another thing to
be observed, is, the way these pots were evidently
supported. They had pointed ends, and near
them are found circular open rings of pottery,
whose use was evidently to support the pointed
ends of the vases, which were incapable of
standing by themselves. The ring of burnt clay was
the mortise, the pegtop-like termination was
the tenon of the vase. In connexion with this,
the professor told me that Admiral Elliot, who
had visited the museum, recognised this primitive
form of support as still used by the Hindoos
and other Indian people.

This brings me to the probable origin of
these ancient predecessors of the Swiss. They
were a wave of that great tide which set in
towards Europe from the East, choosing chiefly
the inland seas, and ascending rivers as their
roadways, or rather waterways, to new regions,
where they should replenish the tenantless
earth. Naturally such tribes, accustomed to
water, chose water whereon to found their first
settlements. Moreover, the long narrow causeways
of wood, that led from the shore to their
habitations, became a protection to them from
wild beasts, or wilder human enemies. Also
the waters supplied them with ready food, and
were as Nature's own clearings amidst the
shaggy mountains and impenetrable forests, the
mere fringe of which they with difficulty cut
away for household purposes. Advanced into
the free lake, the settlers could look around
them and breathe the air of heaven. Herodotus
has described similar lacustrine dwellings
belonging to the Pæonians, who had settled on
Lake Prasias, in Turkey.

When I asked the professor, "Why the
implements of this ancient race were so baby-like and
small?" he replied, "Probably because they
themselves were small, and, like the Orientals,
had very small hands and feet. However," he
continued, "this is not conjecture, but fact.
Look here at the next case in my museum, where
you perceive ornaments of a more advanced
period, though still belonging to the Lake-
people. Look at these bracelets of horn, so
deep in circumference but so small in diameter;
you would think that even a child's hand could
not enter them; yet here are the human bones
still in them." This was true. The professor,
finding the bracelets on the skeleton of a full-grown
person, had fixed the bones of the wrist
within the bracelets by pouring cement round
them. "Look, also," resumed the professor,
"at that bronze sword, still later in date, found
at a time when the Age of Wood and Stone
became the Age of Bronze; observe that the
handle is only coextensive with three of my
fingers, though my hand, like myself, is not
very big. I met, some time ago, a Peruvian
lady, who was the last descendant of Montezuma,
and hers was the only hand and wrist I have ever
known slip easily into that bracelet, which is as
inflexible for the hand as Cinderella's glass
slipper was for the feet."

That these Lake relics are, in very truth, of a
most remote antiquity, was proved in various
ways by Professor Troyon. He said, " A
discovery that was made in the valley of the Orbe
may give an idea of this antiquity. The Lake of
Neufchatel, it is well known, is always, because
of the increase of the peat-bogs and the delta of
alluvial matter formed by the rivers Thiele and
Buron, retreating farther back from the Lake of
Neufchatel. In the time of the Romans, the
actual site of Yverdun was under water. There
was even a time when all the valley was covered
by the lake. Then Mount Chamblon was an
island, and, at the foot of this mount, were Lake-
villages of the ancient people, whose relics,
which are all of the Age of Stone, are now
found many feet below the surface of the bog.
By accurate calculation of the time that the lake
now takes in its retreatings, we find that the
destruction of these lake-dwellings must have
occurred, at latest, in the fifteenth century
before the Christian era.

"But here is another proof of this,"
continued the professor. " Look at these fir-poles
which were found in the Lake of Geneva, the
supports of ancient villages of a later date,
though still of a period long previous to the
Roman conquest. You see that they are the
real wood, while I only possess casts of the