Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1890-03-28
THE LAKE pwELLEsc.!
The First and the Last Of : Rsce Thnt d


The LAKE oWELkEgG.
TIL. F,r.t and ths "a. = ~. -. 49,.
Inhabited switserIseX. '''-'
The recent discovery of tofnbs Of The
lake jewellers has awakened renewed
interest in the people d prehistorio
Switzerland, Tourists Will hardly be
conteft any More to pass through SWftz-
erland without visiting one 0r more Of
the museums where the collections made
from the excavated lake dwellings are
exhibited. S%
Perhaps the most ex tensfv6 exhibition
of these relics is the one 81 the *sHelm
House." in Zurich. There DIE sees
what are in fact the gr69t66f 1nf1 quitiee
of the whole world. Thar ~ hun-
dreds and thousands Of 81 (en9 81
stonesswood, cloth, weapon 6r1a-
ments of people wl1o4& 16&l ~ Y eS60ld
. thousand years before nv Old ex-
cayated Pompeii was evex though a.
s. 10 ISrof. Ferdinand KELLER 6Sf0f4 all
Others the world is indebted tn knowl
edge of what it probably NJ before the
4 time of history All the Later years Of
his life we're devoted "a the tnyestigas
tionsof the lake dwellers' ytllHGe8 md
no man was 80 competent ~ he to nj
luvenate those dead old skuIlsa and relics,
lifting thousand years from the for
gotten past into the middle Of the nine
teey1th century, "a
! Keller has translated the hero
glyphics OF the dead ages. He has ex-
planned how the antiquarians have
divided all the prehistoric past into the
ages OF stone, Of bronze and Of iron: how
the lake jewellers OF Switzerland were
frst discovered at Meilen, on the lake OF
Zurich, in 1929, and more fully revealed in
1854; and how the world at large shut
its eyes, almost, to the great contribu-
ton made to history. He has told, too.
how the patient, Woodworking investi-
gators, OF whom he is chief, have uncov-
cred and dug out enough OF these buried
towns to prove that our best families
don't need to break of their ancestral
line with William the Conqueror, or any
other William. Those OF us who think
we might be proud OF our far-off progen-
ltors may yet be gratified to see some
shrewd Yankee following our line clear
back to Orgetorix, the youngest off
! 'P----7 " |.'- N>~S>S p A-'~eAA>iS ~ WY
lake dwellers. s
II our American tourist will take a
little more time, jump on the cars, and
ride out to Robenhausen, on the lake Of
Pfafiikon, he will there witness with his
own eyes the turf beds and the lake Civ
ing upthe secrets OF the age of stone
Robenhausen Is a town of the stone age
period 1t was perhaps twelve hundred
| feet square, standing on platform bull
on hundred thousand piles driven int
the bottom of the shallow lake, about
three hundred yards from the shore
Like all the other Swiss lake towns il
was connected with the land by long
4 bridge, also built on piles. OF course
the visitor now will see little except
chopped-eH piles sticking in the peat
and among them the debris of the vii
lagos that have gone to ruin. Roben-
hansen had been partly burned down and
built up again on the same site. but at in
tervals OF ages. probably. apart: so that the
peat bed shows on being opened three sets
OF piles, one above the other. The
only way of jud ging OF the probable agt
OF these Lake dwellings is by estimating
the centuries required for peat beds tx
form. Reckoned in this manner the
fage OF the FIRST town built at the bottom
Of Robenhausen must be prodigious.
In these lake villages there one,
l1vedla people as much civilized, posi-