The Story of Switzerland

il and made it "home"? These questions naturally present themselves every now and then to most thoughtful people.

esents. Now and then indeed we may know tolerably well the story of some early Greek immigration, or we may possess full accounts of the modern settlement of a Pi

f Lake Settlements i

T. Heierl

ast few years, and the same schoolboy even understands, if somewhat hazily, the importance attaching to these discoveries. Nevertheless, some short account of the earliest inhabitants o

ops of which were but a few inches below the surface of the mud, were found to be planted in rows and squares, and the number of them seemed to be enormous. And then there were picked out of the mud large numbers of bones, antlers, weapons, implements of various kinds, and what not. Dr. Ferdinand Keller, a great authority on Helvetian antiquities, was sent from Zurich to examine the spot, and he pronounced it to be a lak

T; (2 AND 3) STONE CELTS, F

ssion from "Harp

of Constance, Geneva, Zurich, Neuchatel, Bienne, Morat, and other smaller lakes, and on certain rivers and swampy spots which had once

e of the dwellings measured as much as 27 feet by 22 feet. Hearthstones blackened by fire often remain to show where the kitchens had been. Mats of bast, straw, and reeds abound in the settlements, and show that the lakemen had their notions of cosiness and comfort. Large crescent-shaped talismans, carved on one side, were hung over the entrances to the huts, showing pretty clearly that the moon-goddess was worshipped. The prehistoric collections in the public museums at Zurich, Berne, Bienne, Neuchatel, and Geneva, not to speak of private collections, are very extensive and very fine, containing tools, handsome weapons, knives of most exquisite shape and carving, women's ornaments, some of them of the most elegant k

S OF WOVEN FABRICS FOUND

ssion from "Harp

s. The turf itself is covered by a stratum of sticky matter, 4 inches thick. In this are numbers of relics embedded, both destructible and indestructible objects being perfectly well preserved, the former kept from decay through having been charred by fire. The late Professor Heer discovered and analysed remains of more than a hundred different kinds of plants. Grains, and even whole ears of wheat and barley, seeds of strawberries and raspberries, dried apples, textile fabrics, implements, hatchets of nephrite-this mineral and the Oriental cereals show clearly

tells us, built their houses over water, so as to gain facilities for fishing. They used to let down baskets through trapdoors in the

barley, and kept horses, cattle, sheep, and goats. The women spun flax and wool, and wove them into fabrics for clothing. Their crockery was at first of a very primitive de

ERY FOUND IN SWIS

ission from "Ha

uchatel and Bienne, Préfargier being one of the chief stations, where settlements belonging to the stone, bronze, and iron ages are found ranged one above another in chronological order. In the topmost stratum or colony, the lakemen's wares are found mingling pell-mell with iron and bronze objects of Helvetian and Roman make, a fact sufficient, probably, to show that the lake dwellers associated with historical peoples. It would be useless as well as tedious to set forth at length all the t

e date just given, and began to fix their habitations on terra firma. Various tombs already found on land would bear witness to this change. When these peculiar people had once come on shore to live they would be gradually absorbed into neighbouring and succeeding races, no doubt into some of the Celtic tribes, and

to pass over the lakemen in silence, especially now when the important discoveries of similar lake settleme

TNO

f settlement, but we are here deal

erod,

s are of most exquisite chiselling, though these were probably imported from Italy, with which country the lake dwellers would seem to have had considerable traffic. The earliest specimens of pottery are usually ornamented by mere rude nail scratchings, but those o

ot made into bread, but roasted to bring off the husk. And roasted barley is still a favourite article of diet in the Lower Engadine. The Greeks ate it at their sacrifices, and always took supplies of it when starting on a journey. So Telemachus asks h

n be said on the matter should read the valuable