walls consisting of wooden uprights, wattled with brush, chinked with moss, and plastered on the inside.
Troyon was convinced that the dwellings were circular like those of the historic Gauls and 10 to 15 feet in diameter, but the more sober view, from evidence and analogies, is that they were rectangular and varied greatly in dimen sions. The floors were of poles or of roughly hewn planks like those made by the Haida and Tlinkit Indians. and often in two layers, one above the other. The fire-place was either of clay or later of dressed stone. The roofs were of grass, or earlier of skins held down by poles, as may he seen the South American tribes. There were out-structures for the domestic ani mals and for defense. The storage was in the nature of granaries. Cooking was by roasting or boiling. The water of the lakes was sufficient for domestic purposes. The industrial activities of the lake are shown by the abundant and diversified relics. Checker, twilled, and twined weaving and wickerwork abound. They made coiled basketry with locked and split stitches like that of the Salish tribes, chipped and hafted scrapers, saws, adzes. and other tools like the Eskimo, and excavated canoes from logs. Bears' teeth necklaces are abundant. The pottery is more like that of Eastern America. Lances, spears. and barbed harpoons are plentiful, but the toggle harpoon is missing.
The animals of the lake dwellers in their re mains tell an interesting story of progress in culture here. In the Stone Age lake dwellings, the hones of wild animals abound (hear, badger, martin, skunk, wolf, fox, wild cat, beaver, elk.
The history of the lake dwellings is as long as that of industrial Europe down to the com plete dominion of iron. They were in Switzer land and Italy in the Neolithic Age, when the people of England, France, and Spain were erect ing their megalithic monuments and building dolmens. 'They existed during the entire Bronze Age, however long that may have been, since polished stone and bronze are here and there mingled with that metal. In a few of them
iron axes and knives are mixed with sword and lance blades. The Stone Are remains outnumber the others, and some of them are of vast extent.
The builders of the Neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland and thereabout were almost cel thinly the thick-set, brown-eyed, brachveeplialle race of middle Highland Europe, with chestnut brown hair, called Celtic by older writers. Alpine by Lapouge, Lappanoid by Pruner Bey, and Celto-Slavic by French writers generally. They bear other names, but they all refer to the same short-headed stock wedged into Niddle Europe between blond long-heads on the north, and bru net long-heads on the south. The lake dwellers are supposed to have been of Asiatic origin and to have marched at their leisure entirely across Europe, between the forty-fifth and fiftieth paral lels. thousands of years ago, reaching Switzer land, Belgium, and even Ireland, thrcugh Hun gary and the Valley of the Danube.
A variety of industrial occupations insured their material and intellectual progress. and their residence in a country abounding in game and fish and fertile land encouraged hunting, fishing. boat-building, skin-working, agriculture, textile arts, pottery, and gave them surplus for trade. At the same time their wealth invited the attacks of huogry and jealous neighbors, and made them warlike and aggressive. All of these combined gave them solidarity in purpose and action. Many of the most artistic of the relics found are weapons and shields. There is Kith to show their social organization. but it cannot have been greatly different from that revealed by the early historians of Germany.
Consult: Keller, The Lake Dwellings of S•it zerland mud Other Parts of Europe (London, 18i8) ; Ancient Scottish Lake Dwalings or uran wogs ( Edinburgh, 1882) ; Munro, The Lake Dwellings of Europe 1890).