of implements denoting any connexion with the later iron age occurred, and the only objects on which the art of man had been practiced beyond the pottery and flint weapon-heads were bones sharpened into awls, one of which was obtained in a very perfect state.

In the midst, but more abundantly at the bottom, of the refuse deposits occurred rounded stones, from the size of a man's clenched hand and upwards, bearing evident traces of having undergone the action of fire. These stones are precisely similar to those found on the beach beneath.

At the bottom of the refuse heap, which occurred at a distance of eighteen inches from the surface, a layer of black soil came two inches thick; then a layer of white brown sand of the same thickness; then came a reddish colored earth, getting lighter as the spade went down, until the original foundation of hardened drift proclaimed no further investigation necessary in that direction. Taking a general view of the surface, the observer naturally supposed that the rounded granitic boulders which lie scattered on the heap had afforded seats for the primitive people, who rudely cooked their food at this encampment on the edge of the wild forest; nor was the supposition incorrect, for on digging around these boulders greater masses of shells, and more evident traces of fire were apparent than in other parts of the heap. The charcoal, in some instances, had lost but little of its former consistency, while in others it powdered into dust on being handled. This probably arose from the nature of the wood, some kinds affording a hard charcoal, and others soft.

The Fauna of this Nova Scotian kjækken-mædding, so far as it could be ascertained, was as follows: Of mammals, the moose, (Cervus alces,) the bear, (Ursus americanus,) the beaver, (Castor canadensis,) and the porcupine, (Hystrix dorsata,) were noticed; the beaver and porcupine by their teeth, which, from their brightness and compactness, might just have been taken from the jaw. A beaver's tooth had the root part rubbed, and smoothed to a head, giving, with its chisel-like point, the appearance of an instrument for cutting. Some of these teeth were jagged on their edges as if by artificial means. The bones of the animals had been broken, and, with the exception of a few very small ones, none were obtained whole. Of birds, there were the bones of different species, some very large, and evidently belonging to a bird much larger than the great northern diver, (Colymbus glacialis,) which is one of the largest wild birds in the colony at the present day. The bird bones were also more or less broken, and one in particular had been opened by means of a cutting instrument down the side. Of fishes, the vertebra of two or three species, the largest measuring about an inch in diameter, while two or three specimens of the opercular spines of the Norway haddock, (Sebastes norwegians,) were procured among the debris in a perfect state, which led to the supposition that they were used for some purpose, such as pricking holes. Of mollusks, the most common were the quahog, (Venus mercenaria,) clam, (Mya arenaria,) scallop, (Pecten islandicus,) Crepidula fornicata and Mytilus edulis. Of the two former species nearly the whole mass of shell consisted. The mussel shells had become so friable that the slightest touch was sufficient to break them.

Time did not permit, however, a closer examination to be made on this first visit to the mounds; but some members of the Institute, aware of the interest attaching to the subject, have decided upon camping out during the ensuing summer in the vicinity of other deposits known to exist in various places, and hope, by thoroughly excavating the several mounds, to bring to light specimens which will doubtless help to prove the age in which they were constructed, and the similarity which existed between the manner and customs of the race who formed them, and the constructors of those placed in like positions on the shores of Denmark and Northern Europe.

J. M. JONES,

President of the Institute of Natural Sciences.

ABSTRACT OF THE FIFTH REPORT OF DR. KELLER

ON

LACUSTRIAN SETTLEMENTS.

FROM THE BULLETIN OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENEVA.

IN January, 1854, certain works, undertaken on the shores of the Lake of Zurich, at Obermeilen, brought to view, with the mud and ooze from the bottom of the water, an assemblage of ancient remains, together with piles. Dr. Keller, president of the Archæological Society of Zurich, published in the spring of 1854 a first report respecting this discovery. It was a brief but lucid description, accompanied with numerous figures, and the conclusion was even then arrived at that there had existed in ancient times, at the point in question, habitations built upon pile-work. Discoveries of the same kind were rapidly multiplied in Switzerland, few savants possessing, in an equal degree with Dr. Keller, the art of guiding and encouraging others in the labors of research. His correspondence forms a connected course of instruction, strikingly recommended by the unaffected liberality which pervades it, and which naturally evokes a reciprocal spirit of frank communication in regard to all new facts and observations. To this concurrence of efforts, directed to different points, which, taken separately, would have been of little avail, we owe the rapid development of Swiss archæology; and it is this also which has enabled Dr. Keller to publish a second report on lacustrian habitations in 1858, a third in 1860, a fourth in 1861, and now the fifth, with which we are at this moment occupied. These several reports are all distinguished by an affluence of well-ascertained facts, and of accurate figures, as well as by the absence of those idle discussions and fantastic reflections which are still but too rife in matters of archæology. Nor is it a circumstance unworthy of notice that even our neighbors of Italy and Germany have contributed to swell this fifth report by valuable communications presented under their own names; for Dr. Keller is of that class of savants who conscientiously render to each whatever is his due, and willingly withdraw themselves from notice in order to give greater prominence to the merits of another.

Unfortunately Dr. Keller only publishes in German, whence his reports, though now and then containing an article written in French, such as the excellent paper of M. L. Rochat on the lacustrian habitations of the neighborhood of Yverdon, are too little known in certain countries. There should be a French publication recapitulating the labors of the savant of Zurich, but a natural repugnance is felt to undertaking such a work while progress and discovery are still in full career. We shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a simple review of the fifth report, which is before us.

This report commences with a notice of ten pages on the Terramara de l'Emilia, by M. P. Strobe, professor of natural history in the University of Parma, and M. L. Pigorini, a young archæologist of the city of that name. The German translation is from the pen of M. Strobel, who speaks and writes German perfectly well. Three plates, comprising eighty-nine figures, accom

pany this notice, which resembles those given by Dr. Keller in its avoidance of all useless phraseology.

In the duchy of Parma there occur, in the level tracts bordering upon rivers, deposits of a peculiar nature, which have been for some time employed, under the name of terramara, in the culture of lands. They are accumulations of a marshy nature, interspersed with beds of river ooze, of charcoal and cinders, through the whole of which are thickly strewn the crushed bones of animals, pieces of wood, fragments of pottery, and divers objects in bone, in stone, and in bronze. It is apparent that man once inhabited these places, liable as they were to occasional submersion. At one point there was found, in good preservation, a floor built upon piles, which had been planted in a marshy soil beneath shallow water, which, by the accumulation of solid material, had since become dry land.

The bronze articles occuring in the terramara are hatchets, reaping-hooks, lance-heads, poniard-blades, hair-pins, a small bronze comb, chisels, and awls, the whole being of the kind met with in Switzerland and the north, and rcgarded as characteristic of the age of bronze. The pottery is coarse, composed of clay mingled with sand, rudely shaped by hand, without the use of the wheel, as is still practiced in villages of the Appenine in preparing utensils intended to resist the action of fire. The vases present a peculiarity, not as yet else where observed, in being often furnished with small handles, drawn out into variously shaped horns and knobs, and sometimes ornamented with stripes. Spindle whirls, plain or striped, are of frequent occurrence. Among the objects of bone may be mentioned two combs, embellished with carvings in the manner of the bronze age, and among those of wood the remnant of a wicker basket. The remains of animal bones have been carefully studied by Professor Strobel, who, after having compared them with those of the lacustrian settlements of Switzerland, described by Professor Rutimeyer, of Bâle, has had the satisfaction of seeing even the most questionable of his decisions confirmed by the lastnamed savant. The species thus far recognized by M. Strobel are: remains of the bear, the wild boar, the roe-buck, and the stag; and, of domestic animals, the dog, the horse, the ox, the hog, the goat, and the sheep, all of them races occurring in the lakes of Switzerland. To this list should be added some remains of birds, and, among others, of the domestic fowl, with those of terrestrial and fluviatile mollusks, still found alive in the country. The vegetable kingdom has contributed various kinds of wood, wheat, (triticum turgidum,) beans, hazel-nuts, pears, apples, service-berries, acorns, and the capsules which enclose the seeds of flax. It would appear from the collective circumstances that the terramara represents what may be called the kitchen-middens (kjækken-mædding) of the age of bronze, formed in co-operation with the alluvium of rivers.

Lacustrian settlement at Peschiera, on Lake Garda, in Italy.-M. de Silber, Austrian officer of engineers at Verona, reports that, in dredging at the entrance of the port of Peschiera, remains of pile-work were found, entirely buried in the mud at the bottom of the water, while the mud itself contained numerous objects in bronze, of which Dr. Keller gives three plates of figures. These consist of poniard-blades, hair-pins of various shapes, hooks, or small fish spears, a knife, and some small remnants of clothing, all bearing much resemblance to those taken from the lakes of Switzerland. Among these objects from Peschiera are some of copper, which leads Dr. Keller to dissent from the generally received idea that the age of bronze, properly so called, had its origin in Asia, since Europe would then have had no age of copper, forming the necessary stage between the age of stone and that of bronze. Dr. Keller presents, in support of his opinion, a plate comprising the figures of twenty-eight objects of red copper, chiefly hatchets and coins, found in Hungary and Transylvania, and he adduces the testimony of a friend of his, who resided long in Hungary, and

8

who affirms that these objects of copper are frequent in the countries of the lower Danube.

Lacustrian settlements of the Untersee, that is, of the portion of the Lake of Constance to the east of the city of Constance.-For several years an extensive pile-work of the age of stone, situated near the village of Wangen, at one league and a half from Stein, had been used, with a view to the trade in antiquities, by one Lohle, under the direction of Dr. Keller, who has spoken of this locality in previous reports. Recently M. K. Dehoff, employed in the customs of the grand duchy of Baden, has explored the whole Baden part of the Untersee, and his account, occupying nine pages, is given with the skill of a master, and the precision of a mathematician. Many of the observations already made at Wangen are here reproduced, but several interesting results of a general nature flow from them. In the first place, there is the absence, in all this region, of pile-works belonging to the age of bronze, all those explored up to this time having furnished, besides pottery, bone, buck-horn, &c., only stone, without any trace of metal, which does not import, however, that none will ever be found. Another curious remark is, that silex of foreign production occurs, unshaped and in abundance, at certain localities, denoting a place of fabrication, while elsewhere it is wholly wanting, as if the division of labor had existed, not only among individuals of the same settlement, but among the lacustrian villages, to some of which the preparation of instruments of silex, for the common supply, had been specially assigned. It is also a striking circumstance that in these settlements without metals are not unfrequently found hatchets of serpentine of excellent form, so ingeniously and even ornamentally wrought that we might be inclined to refer them to a later age, characterized by greater advances in art, and by the employment of bronze. On the other hand, such handles of buck-horn for the stone wedge as are found at Meilen, at Moossedorf, and elsewhere, arc almost entirely wanting in the Untersee. Here the usual form of handle for the stone wedge was the branch, bent and notched with a ligature to retain the wedge in the notch. Two plates, with twenty-seven figures, accompany the memoir of M. Dehoff, comprising, among others, the plan, with sections, of the pile-work near Allensbach, the place of each pile being indicated, which gives, for the first time, a complete and correct idea of the subject. In concluding, M. Dehoff furnishes also some information respecting the prolongation, towards the northwest, of the Lake of Constance, called Ueberlingersee, which presents, in respect to lacustrian settlements, the same features with the Untersee.

The fascine-work of Nieder- Wyl, near Frauenfeld, canton of Thurgau.—Dr. Keller, while he gives the French term fascinage, calls it in German packwerkbau, corresponding somewhat to that which is known in Ireland under the name of crannoge. A small lake, or, more properly, a natural pond, filled with peat, was subjected to exploration. At one point the workmen reached, at a depth of from two to three feet, under the surface of the peat-moss, a collection of wood and solid matter, forming a sort of isle of about 20,000 square feet, around which there was a depth of eight or ten feet of the peat before attaining the ancient bed of the lake. This isle was ascertained to be an artificial construction, which had served as a foundation for habitations. To the selected point in the lake it seems that logs and boughs were brought, bound together in rafts, and loaded with sand to make them sink, piles being driven around to mark the limits of the construction, and the operation repeated till it rose above the surface of the water. A floor of logs, in close juxtaposition, was then laid upon sills regularly arranged, and this floor was covered with a layer of compacted clay, upon which the dwellings were erected. These dwellings were rectangular, being, on an average, twenty feet long and twelve wide. The walls, parts of which were still in place, were formed of logs split into rough boards, confined between stakes or posts planted vertically at suitable inter

vals. In the corner of one of these dwellings there was found a hearth formed of unwrought flag-stones, still covered with coals and cinders. The floors, having sometimes sunk, at one point or other, to the extent of several inches, even a foot or more, the level had been restored by filling up the cavity. It would seem, in some instances, that the entire floor had sunk beneath the level of the water, and new ones been constructed above, since the remains of articles of domestic use or production occur between the two courses. The dwellings, which seem to have been covered with thatch, were distant from one another only two or three feet, and it is in these interstitial spaces, where the floors were more or less interrupted, that the remains of human industry have been chiefly discovered. This settlement bears no marks of having been destroyed by fire; it appears to have been voluntarily abandoned. At all events, its remains are the most complete and best preserved which have been yet discovered in Switzerland.

The constructions discovered by Colonel Suter, of Zofinguen, in the peatmoss of Wauwyl, much resemble those just described, only at Wauwyl they are more primitive and less skilfully combined, although those of Niederwyl belong to the age of stone, as well as those of Wauwyl. The researches at Niederwyl have disclosed hatchets of stone, wheat and tissues of flax, both charred, fragments of pottery, and bones of animals, which had served for food. We owe this interesting discovery to the zeal of M. Pupikofer, who has superintended the excavations made by M. Messikommer.

Lacustrian settlement near Zug, described by Professor Mühlberg, of Zug.— In the suburbs of Zug, on the road leading to Cham, workmen were digging the foundations of a house, when, at a depth of five feet, a dark-colored bed of decomposed organic matter was encountered, in which were found hatchets of stone, fragments of silex, hulls of hazel and beach nuts, apple-seeds and animal bones, together with the tops of stakes planted vertically, on some of which still rested cross-pieces of wood. Here, there were evidently the remains of a lacustrian settlement of the age of stone, embosomed in the solid earth which had gradually encroached upon the lake. The bones have been examined by Professor Rutimeyer, of Bâle, and he has distinguished the cow, of that race which he names after the peat, the peat hog, the peat dog, the roe and the deer. Settlement of Ebersberg, canton of Zurich.-in a sequestered spot, at the back of a hill called the Ebersberg, near the Rhine, ancient remains have been found, which M. Escher de Berg has described in vol. vii, 4th part, of the Memoirs of the Archæological Society of Zurich. M. Escher resumed his researches in 1862, and has drawn up an account of his explorations, which were continued for 64 days. This site has a peculiar interest, for it presents the remains of a settlement on terra firma, and an assemblage of objects entirely corresponding with those which characterize the lacustrian habitations of the age of bronze, for instance, in the lake of Bienne. Under 5 or 6 feet of detritus, an ancient surface of well-rammed clay was brought to light, and on this surface were discovered near one another the remains of two rectangular ovens, 5 to 6 feet long by 3 broad, formed of siliceous pebbles and clay mixed with much sand. Beyond these there was a pavement of pebble stones, and it was on these substructions that the bed containing antique articles immediately rested, while the thick mass of superincumbent humus was entirely destitute of them. In the bed spoken of, the very first excavations had yielded a crescent of stone skilfully cut. In the recent excavations a second crescent has been disclosed, but composed of baked clay, precisely like those taken by Colonel Schwab from the lake of Bienne, and which were probably used in the religious rites of the time. These later researches have also yielded: fragments of Hint, wedges or hatchets of serpentine, stones for crushing grain; and, of bronze, two knives, some dozens of hair-pins like those of the lakes, several small chisels, an arrow-point, a number of rings and of plates of metal orna