many years the resorts of petty chieftains, and afterwards, perhaps, of gangs of free-booters." Hearth-stones have generally been met with in the Irish crannoges, as they were also at Meilen on the Lake of Zürich. In a few instances causeways appear to have connected the islets with the mainland. The more usual access was by boats formed like the Swiss einbäume. Such vessels have almost always been found in the vicinity of each crannoge; and one in Drumaleague Lough presented the variety of having apertures cut in its sides, as if for row-locks.
We have ventured to infer from indirect evidence that the Swiss huts were of a circular form, and composed of wattled-work. So too a solitary but certain instance of an old Irish cabin may be supposed to portray the original huts that stood on the islands. In 1833, an ancient log-cabin was accidentally discovered in Drumkellin bog, in Donegal, at a depth of fourteen feet. A full account, with plans, &c., by Captain Mudge, R.N., exists in the Archæologia.[1] It was twelve feet square and nine feet high, being divided into two stories, each four feet high. It was constructed of rough oak planking, split evidently with wedges. The posts of the frame-work were mortised into beams laid horizontally, as noticed in the crannoge at Lagore; the roof was flat. The interstices between the planking of the floor and roof seemed to have been filled up with a composition of grease and sand. A staked inclosure apparently had been raised around it, and there was reason to believe that similar huts were close by. A stone celt, found in the very house, a piece of leather sandal, an arrow-head of flint, and a wooden sword, found very near the spot, give evidence of the remote antiquity of this building, which, no doubt, may be taken as a type of the early dwellings on the crannoge islands.
It will be seen that this subject of lake-buildings is full of interest, if only from the period of extreme antiquity to which it would seem reasonable to ascribe their primary construction and occupation. The reliques found at Moosseedorf clearly belong to that remote period we term generically the age of stone—that age when the rude races that preceded the vast outpouring of the Kelts in Europe were as yet unacquainted with the art of working metals. The pile-buildings of Switzerland then are to be attributed to a pre-historic race— so too perchance may the crannoges of Ireland. Yet no one can imagine that such constructions were confined to Swiss or Irish waters. It is probable enough that, when public attention is sufficiently attracted to keen research, every lake
- ↑ Vol. XXVI. pl. 361.
