the analogous, and no less remarkable, remains presented by the archæology of our own land.
In calm weather clustering collections of stems of trees may be observed in the clear waters of Swiss lakes, at depths varying from ten to twenty feet, which have given rise to many theories. Sometimes they have been conceived to be the remains of submerged forests. They are usually observed to run in a parallel direction with the shore, at a distance of about 300 feet from it. Little wots the fisherman, gliding in his skiff over the glassy surface of the lake, that these dark, mouldering stems are the monuments of the patient industry and independence of the earliest inhabitants of his country. How little he suspects that here his forefathers founded their dwellings in bold security among the floods, and that beneath may still be found the most irrefragable evidence of their industry, their arts, and daily occupations. But the veil which concealed 2,000 years of the past has born raised.
In the dry winter of 1853-4, the Swiss lakes and rivers sank lower than had ever been previously known, and the inhabitants of Meilen, on the Lake of Zürich, availed themselves of this favourable opportunity to recover a piece of ground from the lake.[1] Their excavations led to the discovery of the remains of a number of piles, deeply driven into the bed of the lake, formed of the stems of oaks, beech, birch, and fir trees. Among these piles lay a great mass of reliques which, with one single exception, belonged to the stone period. They consisted of hammers, corn-crushers, &.c., and especially a great variety of axes and celts of various kinds of stone, peculiar in some instances to the East. Many of these were fitted into hafts of stag-horn. Implements of flint also were numerous, which is the more remarkable as flint is rarely found in that country. Several ponderous slabs were also noticed which bad evidently done duty as hearth-stones. Mixed with these were numerous implements in bone, the teeth of bears, boars' tusks, and numerous skeletons of deer and wild boar. One amber bead was found, and an armlet of thin brass wire, which was the sole instance of any metal whatever. Pottery occurred in abundance, in a fragmentary state. It was of a rude, coarse description, fashioned by the hand. Masses of charred wood, which apparently were parts of the platform of the building, were abundant. Indeed it was evident that not only this settlement, but the great majority of those subsequently found, perished by fire. Not a trace of a saw was perceptible in the wood-work; the piles had all been pointed with stone axes, or by fire, and
