Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-01-01


Many years ago the people Of Europe were
obliged TO build their houses and villages in
the middle Of lakes and ponds, OF in some
places surrounded by water. 10 this wey
they protected themselves against wild beasts
that infested the woods around them and
from the savage men who we're more cruel
than the wild beasts.
1t is probable that at this time England.
France aud Germany we're nearly covered
with forests, through which monstrous ami.
mails wandered. Great bears, wolves, and
possibly the immense mammoth, drove men
and women before them. They took refuge
In the lakes and ponds Of water they built
their towns on piles or stakes driven into
the bottom OF the lake.
All over Europe the remains of these sin.
gular retreats are found, but the most remark
able are found in Switzerland. Here, where
the waters OF the lakes are low, great nun.
bers OF these villages may be traced. The
piles on which they were built are still there (;
sometimes even remains OF the 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
fed from the wild beasts Of the forests.
These lacusirine villages, az they are called,
could not have been very comfortable. The
piles or stakes on which they rested we're cut
in the woods near by, and then dragged to
the water side where they we're driven into
the deep mud and fastened together A floor
OF logs was laid upon them. 1t seems to
have been covered over with brushwood,
leaves and grass. The houses were built
above, probably wooden huts, scarcely shell
tered from the wind and rain.
The people who lived in them knew how to
weave q coarse linen or woolen cloth, but u.s.
uAlly must have been clothed in skins. Rude
ornaments of different kinds-rings, chains
Of copper or bronze, weapons, stone knives,
hammers Of stone, beads-are found. Fire
Was evidently used and the bones OF the o.
hog and goat are proofs that the lacustrine
people were not vegetarians. But it Is easy
to imagine how uncomfortable we're their
dwellings. The floor OF the brush wood must
always have been damp and unhealthy the
chill winds OF the Swiss and German lakes
pierced through the walls Of the huts some
times floods overwhelmed them sometimes
q stealtby enemy broke into their defsnses
and burned the whole village a. il it we're a
nest Of venomous insects. The ashes Of ma
ny OF these towns are found at the bottom of
the lakes, showing that they were destroyed
by FIRE. They were usually joined to the
shore by bridge of stakes, over which an
enemy could pass.
Many Of these towns are found in the lakes
and ponds Of Ireland and Scotland. Here
they are called ''crannoges. They seem to
have been less carefully built than those Of
Switzerland, but they still show that the peo-
pie who planned them must have labOred
bard to provide themselves with q safe home.
They had canoes followed from trunks Of
trees, on which they carried their piles out
into the lake. They cut down oak trees o.
considerable size with their hatchets OF -'iOhg
bronze. In one ''crannOge" reeeHuy u'scoV-
cred in Scotland more than 1000 trees, some
of great size had besss cut down and used in
building one Of snese villages in the midst of
a lake.
we Who live in safe and pleasant cities or
country homes can scarcely believe that peo-
pie could exist in these wild retreats in the
midst of the waters. Yet it seems they were
inhabited by a large population even in
Scotland. Here men, women and children
lived and died, sometimes perhaps as happi-
ly as il they had lived in New York or Bos-
ton. They caught fish from their house
doors the children swan in the waters !;
they sometimes cultivated grain on the land,
and sometimes lived, like squirrels, on the
nuts Of the forest.
Men have not, even yet, given up these
lake dwellings. The savages in South Amer
lea, Africa, New Guinea and Borneo still
build them, but they are said to be not 30
skillful a. we're the builders on the Swiss
lakes. .-Hdrper's Young People.