It was best to be thoroughly honest with him, and I answered: "I do not quite understand. It seems to be a mixture of fear and shame that keeps him away."

Tom's dark face flushed to the roots of his hair. He was grieved, pained and chagrined. "I thought Bob knew me better," he said to himself; and turning away he put a question infinitely harder than all the rest: "What is he, Doctor?" "A man to be saved." "Then he is not wholly lost?"

“I trust no man is wholly lost while the breath of life remains within him. Tom,reaching him my hand which he instantly grasped," my interest in your poor brother has grown to be second only to yours; and however painful it may be to you or to me, it is better to talk this matter up thoroughly, and see what we can do for him."

A long consultation followed, in which I told Tom all that I knew of Robert's past or present, withholding only the name of the broker in whose interest the successful search had been prosecuted. Some day he would know. Till then let it rest. I dwelt upon Robert's present condition, necessary

possible to persuade him to become a member of his own family. If an interest in some one or something besides himself could be stimulated into action, if his affections could be drawn out and fostered, and a selfrespect built upon a solid basis, his chances of salvation here and hereafter would be greatly improved. All this could be done in Tom's family if anywhere. He had an excellent wife and three or four young daughters, and the sweetest and most helpful influences abode in that home. The experiment would have been one of doubtful propriety if there had been sons in that family.

I entered first and found Robert still sleeping, and proposed to Tom to look at Robert in his sleep, that he might not betray his painful surprise at the great change that had taken place in him when he should see him awake. Tom went in and I closed the door after him.

What took place in that room was known only to themselves and to Him who knoweth all.

Some hours later Tom and Bob came out, arm in arm, and without speaking to any one went lovingly home together.

fore the days of Abraham, so these and similar discoveries tell us of the numbers and arts and social life of generations that have long since passed away, and of whom we might have had no knowledge but for these mute and yet eloquent relics of their past existence and history.

The lake dwellings of Switzerland are among the wonders of modern discovery. The existence of such dwellings in the past was, indeed, known to classical students. Herodotus tells us of settlements of this kind on Lake Prasias or Bolbe (the modern Takhyno), where he says, "men lived on platforms, supported on tall piles standing in the middle of the lake, and approached from the land by a narrow bridge. ** * Each," he adds, "has his own hut, with each a trap-door giving access to the lake beneath; and they tie their very small children by the foot with a string, to keep them from falling into the water. They feed their horses and other animals upon fish, which are so abundant in the lake that they have only to open the trap-door and let down a basket by a rope into the water, when in a little while it

may be drawn up full of fishes." And skep

tical though we may be as to the material for feeding their horses, the other parts of the account are doubtless reliable.*

Dr. B. F. Keller, in his account of the lake dwellings of Switzerland and of other parts of Europe, translated and arranged by I. E. Lee, F. S. A., and published by the Longmans of London, has given us very full accounts of this class of dwellings in Europe, some of them constructed far back in the ages of antiquity (he supposes thousands of years ago), and some of more modern origin. The details, both as to the structures and also their inhabitants, are minute and wonderful, and the abundance of materials for the narrative is astonishing, between three and four thousand relics having been found on the eastern shore of the Uberlinger Sea alone. From the statements in Dr. Keller's work and in one or two reviews of it, it *An inhabitant of Cape Cod tells the writer that he has now and then seen cows eating fish; and if this is so, we may, perhaps, incline to believe Herodotus. His wonderful accuracy, as more and more made evident by the progress of time and discovery, makes us willing to believe all that we can of his statements.

may be interesting to condense some account of these "Lake Dwellings," as the original works are not accessible to the great body of ordinary readers.

These dwellings of past generations in the lakes of Switzerland are of two classes: those resting on piles, and those supported on fascines, or large bundles of rods and poles. With the first kind, which is much the most common, piles, consisting generally of whole trunks of trees, such as oak, birch, fir, willow, etc., but sometimes of split stems sharpened either by fire or by crude instruments of bronze or stone, were driven into the shallow parts of the lakes. On these, platforms were laid on which the huts of the people were built. The platforms were for the most part of the rudest kind, consisting of layers of unbarked stems, though occasionally, as in one of the Italian lake dwellings, they were composed of boards split out of the trunks of trees and joined with some care and accuracy. In some cases the piles were strengthened and braced by large stones thrown down between them. But in the case of the fascine dwellings, which belong to the earliest age and are found chiefly in the smaller lakes, the erections consisted of layers or bundles of sticks or small stems of trees piled upon each other from the bottom of the lake to above high water mark; and on these the platforms for the huts were laid. These are said very much to resemble the crannoges, or "wooden-islands," that have been found both in Scotland and Ireland.

When the platform for the dwelling was completed, a bed of mud, loam and gravel was laid upon it and beaten down firmly either by the feet or with wooden mallets; several of the latter have been found in the vicinity. Sometimes layers of large pebbles are found near the top; probably to give strength and compactness to this kind of floor. The frame-work of the huts was made of small piles or stakes, between which rough boards were forced in, forming the "skirting boards" of the dwelling; and the rest of the walls consisted of wattle-work, covered inside and out with loam or clay to the thickness of two or three inches. The huts, so far as discovered, were in all cases

rectangular, though huts of the same early age and of kindred races when built on the land were usually circular in shape. In size they vary from twelve by twenty to twentytwo by twenty-seven feet; and in some cases are very much larger. Sometimes they are in groups of five or six, standing closely together; while sometimes they are separated by spaces of two or three feet. They were thatched with straw, reeds and the bark of trees. In addition to the huts for families, there were also on the platforms stalls for cattle and places for fodder and for winter stores. Each hut had its hearth near the center, consisting of three or four slabs of stone; and from the clay weights for weaving found in the huts, it is supposed that most if not all of them were furnished with looms. Portions of young trees with the branches partly lopped off, are not uncommon in the dwellings, used apparently for, suspending mats, tools, nets and earthen vessels, some of which seem to have had handles of rope or bark.

The platforms are generally at some distance from the edge of the lake; and when near the main land were approached by narrow wooden bridges. Some of these were fortified by palisades. The platforms of the later periods are built much further out into the lake than those of the earlier; and the huts themselves are always at the farthest point from the land. As security against enemies was, doubtless, the reason for making and living in such dwellings, those that were thatched were located as far as possible from the reach of burning missiles. And the fact that the bones of the wild swan, which comes to the Swiss lakes only in December and January, have been found among other relics, shows that the huts were occupied all the year round, and that they differed in this respect from the Irish crannoges which were used only as places of refuge in times of danger.

The number of the lake dwellings in various localities must have been very great. In Lake Neuchâtel alone, no less than fifty stations have been found. These vary much in size and extent, from the eastern settlement of Moosseedorf, which covers only fifty-five by seventy feet, to that at Sipple

gen, which covers twenty-three acres. The quantity of piles used was enormous. At Robenhausen alone, it is estimated that there must have been at least a hundred thousand. The dwellings are of various dates, which, for convenience sake, may be classed as the earlier, middle and later, or as some have named them, those of the stone, the bronze, and the iron ages respectively. Not that there is any definite and sharp line of demarcation between the buildings or their periods; but, like geological strata, though they are plainly different, they gradually and almost imperceptibly melt into each other. The settlements in Eastern Switzerland were the earliest, and for the most part ceased to be used before the second or bronze period, or at its very beginning; while those in the Western part, though beginning in the earliest age, did not reach their full development till the second period. Centuries apparently elapsed between the earliest and the latest of these settlements. In some cases, as at Nidan Steinberg, the erections were evidently going on, and the dwellings were occupied through all the different periods. Some of the settlements seem to have been abandoned; and in some cases it is evident they were destroyed by fire. In Bienne and Neuchâtel they seem to have been in use longer than anywhere else, not being abandoned till after the Romans occupied the country; while the Irish crannoges were more or less used as late as the seventeenth century.

The inquiry has very naturally been raised, "What was the degree of civilization possessed by the people of the earlier lake dwellings?" And fortunately for our curiosity, there are ample materials for replying to the question. The men of the earliest ages were agriculturists and also keepers or breeders of cattle. They sowed wheat and millet and the double-rowed barley, which is still cultivated in the East. Nearly one hundred bushels of grain of various kinds, were found in a single place. All the crops seem to have been spring crops, and the tilling of the ground was of the simplest kind, consisting in tearing up the surface with the most crude and inefficient instruments; such,

for example, as the horns of the stag, or the crooked branches of trees. The people also cultivated extensively what is known as the short flax, though no traces of hemp have been found in their dwellings. Corn was sometimes ground for food, the stones used for grinding it being frequently found in the dwellings; while, in other cases, it was crushed and roasted, being made into small cakes that were baked on hot stones covered with glowing embers. Barley was used in the same way, while wheat and millet were both ground and crushed. Corn was also used for porridge; and some remains of this mixture are supposed to have been found in pipkins which must have fallen into the lake at Meilen when the settlement there was burned.

This ancient people, however, were not only agriculturists, but also cattle-keepers. They had cows, sheep, pigs and goats; the dog, too, was then, as now, the companion and servant of the shepherds and herdsmen. "And cats," says Dr. Keller, “purred by the hearth, and killed rats and mice, while their kittens played with balls or strings, just as if they belonged to the nineteenth century." Remains of the horse have been found in most of the settlements, and the people also had cows of a small species; the original stock, probably, of the brown cow which is still found in the mountainous parts of Switzerland. At Auvernier and other places, a horn-shaped vessel of coarse-grained black clay has been found, having five small holes in it, one above another, exactly similar to the vessels now used in the valleys of Jura for making cheese; and this is sup posed to have been used by the occupants of the lake dwellings for the same purpose in their day.

Swine seem to have been abundant, especially toward the close of the earlier age. And in addition to the domestic animals which they used for food, they also supplied themselves, by hunting, with the flesh of the elk or moose, the wild boar, the hare, the stag (the horns of which were utilized for tools and for ploughing, or breaking up the ground), and some suppose with that of the bison. Poultry does not seem to have been kept or used. A large part of the food of

the settlers consisted of fish, as is evident from the immense quantities of scales that have been discovered, and which seem to have been scraped off with broad and sharp flints or flint knives. The skeletons of large pikes have been found, and in some of the settlements the actual fishing nets that they used and the fishing hooks made from the tusks of the wild boar. There are, also, relics of the darts or javelins on which, it is supposed, they in part relied for taking fish. Fruit, too, was by no means neglected. Large quantities of water-chestnuts have been found in the ruins of their dwellings; also raspberries, from which the juice had been pressed, elder-berries, blackberries, and now and then strawberries; both crab and large apples, pears, plums, sloes and cherries of several kinds. Grape-stones have been found only at Castione near Parma, though sickle-like pruning-knives, apparently for pruning vines, have been met with in two or three places. The only product of the kitchen garden as yet found, are peas, and those only at a single place.

The occupants of these early lake dwellings were not unskilled in the various handıcraft arts connected with their everyday life. At Waugen, where the implements and tools of bone, stone and wood, are of the most miserable kind, cloth, both platted and woven, was manufactured in an excellent manner; while in other places the stone celts exhibit great skill in workmanship, some of them being highly ornamental in form and appearance. The carpenters of the second period were, of course, superior to those of the first; but the latter were far from being unskilled or inefficient. The early pottery was rude and coarse, though sometimes finer materials and greater finish are discovered; but there are no traces of vessels with long, narrow necks, like the bottles, flasks and jugs which were so abundant in Roman times. Linen, thicker or thinner, was the principal article of dress and clothing. At Robenhausen a portion of fringe was found, with several specimens of cloth, some of complicated pattern, and all evincing some refinement of taste and even a tendency to luxury. Here, too, was found a last, precisely like those used by the modern