Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1885-11-12
THE LAKE JEWELLERS.

Many years ago the people of Europe
were obliged to build their houses and
villages in the middle of lakes and
pools. or in some place surrounded by
water. In this way they protected
themselves against wild beasts that in
tested the woods around them, and
from the savage men, who were more
cruel than the beasts.
1t is probable that at this time En-
gland, France and Germany were near
ly covered with forests, through which
monstrous animals wandered. Great
bears, wolves, and possibly the i'm
mense mammoth, drove men and wo-
men before them. They took refuge in
the lakes and ponds of water; they
built their towns on piles or stakes driv-
en- into the bottom of the lake.
All over Europe the remains of these
singular retreats are found, but the
most remarkable are in Switzerland.
Here, where the waters of the lakes
are low, great numbers of these vii
lagos may be traced. The piles on which
they were built are still there; some-
times even remains of houses are found.
The people who lived in them were of
small size, apparently. They used
stone axes or hatchets, and fought
with arrows pointed with flint. 1t is
no wonder that they fled from the wild
beasts Of the forests.
These lacustrine villages, as they are
called, could not have been very COM
Portable. The piles or stakes on which
they rested were cut in the woods near
by, and then dragged to the water side.
where they were driven into the deep
mud and fastened together. A floor Of
logs was laid upon them. 1t seemed to
have been covered with brushwood,
leaves and grass. The houses were
built above, probably wooden huts,
scarcely sheltered from the wind and
rain.
The people who lived in them knew
how to weave coarse linen or wooden
cloth, but usually must have been
clothed in skins. Rude ornaments of
different kinds-rings, chains of cop
per or bronze, weapons, stone knives,
hammers of stone. beads-are found.
Fire was evidently used, and the bones
of the OK, hog and goat are proofs that
the lacustrine people were not vegeta-
rians. But 1t Is easy to imagine how
uncomfortable were their dwellings.
The floor of the brushwood must al
ways have been damp and unhealthy;
the chill winds of the Swiss and Ger
man lakes pierced through the huts;
sometimes floods overwhelmed them;
sometimes stealthy enemy broke into
their detenscs and burned the whole
village as if it were a nest of venemous
insects. The ashes of many OF the
towns are found at the bottom of the
lakes, showing that they were des-
troyed by fire. They were usually join
ed to the shore by a bridge of stakes.
over which an enemy could pass.
Many OF these towns are found in the
lakes and ponds of Ireland and Scot
land. Here they are called ..cranno-
ges." They seem to have been less
carefully built than those of Switzer-
land, but they still show that the peo-
pie who planned them must have
labored hard to provide themselves
with safe home. They had canoes
followed out from trunks of trees, on
which they carried their piles out into
the lake. They cut down oak trees of
considerable size with their hatchets of
stone or bronze. In one ''crannogen
than 5000 trees, some of great size.
had been cut down and used in build
ing one of these villages in the midst of
a lake.
We who live in safe and pleasant
cities or country houses can scarcely
believe that people could exist in these
wild retreats III the midst of the
waters. Yet it seems that they were
inhabited by large population. even
in Scotland. Here men, women and
children lived and died, sometimes per-
haps as happily as if they had lived in
New York or in Boston. They caught
fish from Their house doors; the child
rem swan III tue waters; they some
times lived, like squirrels, on the nuts
in the forests.
Men have not, even yet, given up
these lake dwellings. The savages in
South America. Africa, New Guinea
and Borneo still build them, but they
are said to be not so skillful as were
the builders on the Swiss lakes. - ar-
per's loung People.